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[Reprinted  from  the  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST,  Vol.  5,  No.  I,  Jan. -March,  1903.] 


SHEET-COPPER  FROM  THE  MOUNDS  IS  NOT  NECES 
SARILY  OF  EUROPEAN  ORIGIN1 

BY  CLARENCE  B.   MOORE 
*\ 

(WITH  DISCUSSION  BY  J.  D.  McGuiRE,  F.  W.  PUTNAM, 
AND  GEORGE  A.  DORSEY) 

INTRODUCTION 

Some  years  ago  I  included  in  the  Second  Part  of  my  "  Certain 
Sand  Mounds  of  the  St.  Johns  river,  Florida,"  which  appeared  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia,  a 
paper  on  objects  of  copper  found  in  aboriginal  mounds.  In  this  paper, 
where  the  matter  is  gone  into  much  more  fully  than  I  have  space  to 
devote  to  it  here,  it  was  shown  by  many  analyses  that  much  of  the 
copper  of  the  mounds,  including  sheet-copper,  was  native  copper, 
and  much  purer  than  copper  which  is  recovered  from  ores  by  smelt 
ing  and  especially  from  the  arsenical,  sulphide  ores  of  Europe,  which, 
treated  by  the  earlier  smelting  processes,  produced  a  very  impure 
article  indeed.  From  this,  then,  it  was  evident  that  objects  made 
from  this  pure  copper  were  made  by  the  aborigines  from  native 
copper,  and  not  from  copper  furnished  by  the  whites,  since,  as  we 
have  said,  all  European  copper  obtained  by  smelting  was  very  im 
pure  and  in  Europe  there  is  no  supply  of  native  copper  sufficient  for 
commercial  purposes. 

In  view  of  this,  the  conclusion  that  the  aborigines  were  making 
and  using  objects  of  copper,  including  sheet-copper,  before  the 
coming  of  the  whites,  seemed  hard  to  avoid,  and,  in  point  of  fact,  it 
was  almost  universally  accepted.  Of  the  two  persons  who,  in  pri- 

1  This  paper  (which  was  read  before  a  meeting  of  Section  H  of  the  American  Associ 
ation  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  held  at  Washington,  December  30,  1902)  has  been 
submitted  to  Dr  H.  F.  Keller,  Professor  of  Chemistry  at  the  Central  High  School,  Phil 
adelphia,  and  long  a  specialist  in  analyses  of  copper,  who  writes  that  he  has  "  not  been 
able  to  detect  any  statement  in  regard  to  either  composition  or  extraction  of  copper  which 
would  seem  to  require  revision  or  correction."  Prof.  James  Douglas,  the  authority  on 
copper,  President  of  the  Copper  Queen  Mining  Co.  of  Arizona,  writes,  "I  have  read 
with  interest  your  paper,  and  thoroughly  agree  with  all  you  say." 

27 


28  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

vate  letters,  wrote  in  opposition  to  the  conclusion  arrived  at,  one 
frankly  admitted  his  inability  to  draw  conclusions  from  analyses, 
while  the  other,  by  stating  that  copper  ore  and  native  copper  were 
practically  the  same  because  the  difference  between  them  was  only 
a  chemical  one,  indicated  a  lack  of  ability  to  form  intelligent  opposi 
tion. 

The  matter  of  the  pre-Columbian  use  of  copper,  including  sheet- 
copper,  would  have  been  considered  as  settled  without  further  dis 
cussion  had  it  not  been  that  Mr  J.  D.  McGuire,  in  his  interesting 
and  exhaustive  memoir,  u  Pipes  and  Smoking  Customs  of  the 
American  Aborigines"  (page  523  et  a/.),1  seemed  to  regard  copper 
in  use  among  the  aborigines  to  be  necessarily  of  European  proven 
ance.  This  opinion,  in  a  publication  under  government  auspices, 
may  be  considered  to  reopen  the  question,  especially  as  Mr  Mc 
Guire  (page  479),  in  quoting  some  of  my  reports  on  southern 
mounds,  inadvertently  makes  it  appear  that  copper  met  with  by  me 
was  found  under  circumstances  indicating  its  provenance  from  Euro 
pean  sources. 

Mr  McGuire  says  : 

"  Mr  Clarence  B.  Moore  found  at  Fairview,  Camden  county,  Georgia, 
a  foot  below  the  surface  in  a  mound,  a  deposit  of  calcined  human  bones 
beneath  a  local  layer  of  oyster  shells,  and  associated  with  the  bones 
was  a  sheet-copper  ornament  with  repousse  decorations.2  He  refers 
also  to  four  rings  found  on  the  finger  of  a  skeleton  at  Madisonville, 
Ohio,  by  Professor  Putnam,  which  were  made  from  bands  of  sheet-copper. 
Besides  finding  a  copper  finger-ring  in  a  mound  near  Woodbine,  Georgia, 
and  also  a  portion  of  a  disc  of  copper  in  a  mound  in  Mclntosh  county, 
Georgia,  which  was  carbonated  through,  Mr  Moore  also  found  an  eight- 
inch  copper  celt  in  a  mound  north  of  Creighton  island,  Georgia.3 

"Such  objects  are  said  to  be  usually  found  near  the  surface,  and 
polychrome  and  other  glass  beads  were  found  in  the  mounds  at  a  depth 
of  two  feet  with  human  remains  on  or  near  the  surface. ' '  * 

I  shall  now  explain  more  fully  the  cases  cited  by  Mr  McGuire. 


1  Report  of  the  U.  S.  National  Museum  for  1897. 

2  Certain  Aboriginal  Mounds  of  the  Georgia  Coast,  Journal  of  the  Academy  of  Nat 
ural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia,  xi,  p.  10,  1897. 

3  Idem,  pp.  13,  14,  25,  41,  Philadelphia,  1897. 
*  Idem,  pp.  14,  23,  66,  Philadelphia,  1897. 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER    f<ROM    Till':   MOUNDS  29 

The  mound  at  Fairview,  where  sheet-copper  was  found  one  foot 
below  the  surface,  was  but  two  feet  eight  inches  high.  No  object 
distinctly  of  European  manufacture  was  present  in  this  mound. 

The  mound  at  Woodbine  was  four  feet  nine  inches  high.  With 
the  exception  of  buttons  with  a  recent,  intrusive  burial,  and  a  single 
glass  bead  "  on  or  just  beneath  the  surface,  at  a  considerable  dis 
tance  from  any  burial,"  nothing  unquestionably  of  European  pro 
venance  was  present  in  this  mound.  Associated  with  human 
remains,  each  a  foot  and  a  half  from  the  surface,  were  ornaments 
of  sheet-copper.  Two  feet  from  the  surface,  in  place  on  a  finger- 
bone,  was  a  ring  wrought  from  a  band  of  sheet-copper. 

The  mound  at  the  northern  end  of  Creighton  island  was  a  sort 
of  cemetery  extending  over  100  feet  by  1 16  feet.  The  maximum 
height  was  about  three  feet,  and  certain  interments,  in  pits,  were 
three  feet  deeper  still.  Though  two  hundred  and  twenty  skeletons 
were  met  with,  no  object  of  European  make  was  found.  The  cop 
per  chisel — the  only  copper  found  here  —  lay  with  a  burial  in  a  pit 
nearly  six  feet  from  the  surface. 

It  will  be  seen  by  these  details  that  the  instances  cited  do  not 
prove  a  European  provenance  for  the  copper  found,  and,  in  addition, 
I  may  say  that  among  the  many  scores  of  mounds  I  have  de 
molished,  I  have  met  with  a  number  of  large  mounds  where  copper, 
including  sheet-copper,  associated  only  with  objects  purely  aborig 
inal,  lay  from  bottom  to  top,  so  that  it  would  seem  hardly  fair  to 
say  that  copper  is  usually  met  with  near  the  surface  of  mounds. 

I  shall  now  try  to  prove  my  contention  that  copper  met  with  in 
the  mounds  is  not  necessarily  of  European  origin,  and,  as  sheet-cop 
per  would  seem  to  be  more  difficult  for  the  aborigines  to  produce 
than  other  objects  of  copper,  I  shall  bring  forward  proofs  in  relation 
to  sheet-copper  mainly,  for  if  it  can  be  shown  that  much  of  the 
sheet-copper  of  the  mounds  is  native  copper  and  consequently  of 
aboriginal  make,  the  origin  of  other  objects  of  native  copper  may  be 
taken  for  granted. 

ASSOCIATION 

I  have  written  elsewhere  that  objects  in  mounds,  like  persons, 
are  known  by  the  company  they  keep,  and  the  more  mounds  one 
opens  the  more  one  becomes  convinced  of  this  fact. 


30  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

When  one  opens  a  mound  which  was  made  after  contact  of  its 
makers  with  the  white  man,  one  is  likely  to  realize  that  fact  by  the 
nature  of  many  of  the  objects  found  in  that  mound.  Lead,  glass, 
earthenware  with  a  glaze,  pewter,  iron  (except  meteoric  iron),  and 
brass  are  distinctly  of  European  provenance  and  are  found  in 
abundance  in  mounds  whose  makers  have  had  an  opportunity  to 
acquire  them  from  the  whites  ;  and  here  it  may  be  said  that  much 
of  the  so-called  copper  from  post-Columbian  mounds  is  in  reality 
brass  —  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  so-called  copper  kettles  are  brass, 
and  much  so-called  sheet-copper  is  brass,  though,  of  course,  some 
sheet-copper  was  furnished  the  aborigines  by  white  men,  but  this 
copper,  by  its  component  parts  as  shown  by  analysis,  is  just  as 
distinctly  European  as  the  other  articles  in  the  list  given  above. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  one  demolishes  a  mound  of  any  size, 
and,  after  the  exercise  of  the  utmost  care,  among  many  objects  met 
with  finds  nothing  of  European  provenance,  it  would  seem  safe 
to  infer  that  the  mound  was  completed  before  intercourse  with 
Europeans  began. 

Among  the  great  number  of  mounds  I  have  leveled  in  the 
south,  there  have  been  a  considerable  number  in  which  sheet-copper 
has  been  associated  with  objects  of  aboriginal  make,  from  the 
bottom  to  the  top,  and  these  mounds  have  yielded  nothing  dis 
tinctly  European.  Among  mounds  of  this  class  I  may  cite  the 
great  SliiLWfe  mound,  near  the  mouth  of  St  Johns  river,  Florida  ; 
the  famous  mound  known  as  Mt  Royal,  Florida ;  and  the  large 
mound  on  Tick  island,  near  St  Johns  river,  in  the  same  state,  full 
accounts  of  which  have  appeared  in  my  reports  published  by  the 
Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia.  Does  it  seem  pos 
sible  that  the  aborigines,  trading  with  whites,  should  obtain  from 
them  sheet-copper  only,  or  that,  obtaining  articles  of  different  kinds, 
they  should  select  only  sheet-copper  to  put  into  these  mounds  and 
carefully  exclude  all  other  foreign  articles  ? 

RESULTS  OF  ANALYSES 

Before  giving  results  of  analyses  of  copper,  it  may  be  well  to 
remind  those  who  have  not  made  a  speciality  of  this  subject  that, 
in  copper  analyses,  a  difference  of  a  unit  or  two,  as  in  the  case  of 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM  THE   MOUNDS  31 

the  barometer,  amounts  to  a  great  deal.  Copper,  for  instance,  con 
taining  two  percent  of  impurities  is  a  very  impure  article  indeed. 

Results  of  analyses  of  native  copper,  which  results  coincide 
with  analyses  of  most  of  the  copper  from  the  mounds,  differ  as 
greatly  from  analyses  of  copper  furnished  to  the  aborigines  by  the 
whites,  smelted  from  the  arsenical,  sulphide  ores  found  in  Europe, 
as  day  does  from  night. 

Here  is  the  result  of  an  analysis  of  sheet-copper  from  Mt  Royal, 
made  by  A.  R.  Ledoux,  M.S.,  Ph.D.: 

Copper 99-^5  percent. 

Silver trace. 

Iron trace. 

Sheet-copper  from  the  Grant  mound,  according  to  the  analysis 
of  Ledoux  &  Co.,  showed  : 

Copper 99.730  percent. 

Iron 00.034       " 

Silver 00.023        " 

In  a  mound  near  Piketon,  Pike  county,  Ohio,  Mr  Gerard  Fowke 
found  a  certain  quantity  of  sheet-copper  which  was  99.9130  per 
cent  pure. 

Now  let  us  consider  analyses  of  copper  unquestionably  obtained 
from  the  whites  by  aborigines. 

I  am  indebted  to  David  Boyle,  Esq.,  of  the  Ontario  Arche- 
ological  Museum,  for  a  fragment  of  copper  taken  by  him  from  a 
grave  of  the  Tobacco  Hurons,  with  articles  of  European  origin, 
which  yielded  to  analysis  : 

Copper 98.970  percent. 

Impurities  present  were  silver,  iron,  arsenic,  antimony,  nickel, 
cobalt,  and  lead. 

Lead  was  used  in  former  smelting  processes  in  Europe,  but  is 
not  found  in  native  copper.  This  presence  of  lead  in  European 
copper  until  recent  times,  and  the  absence  of  lead  from  native 
copper,  are  practically  another  final  test ;  for  if  it  is  shown  that 
much  of  the  copper  of  the  mounds  does  not  contain  lead,  it  is 
evident  that  this  copper  is  native  copper,  to  which  Europeans  did 
not  have  access  at  that  time. 


32  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  in  testing  copper  for  the 
presence  of  lead,  that  sulphuric  acid  itself  often  contains  lead,  and 
that  before  making  important  analyses  the  sulphuric  acid  to  be  used 
must  itself  be  tested,  without  regard  for  the  statement  of  the  manu 
facturer.  This  point  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized. 

Copper  rivets  from  an  Iroquois  brass  kettle,  Fleming,  N.  Y., 
showed  copper  97.03  percent,  and  as  impurities,  lead,  silver,  iron, 
cobalt,  nickel,  arsenic,  antimony,  and  bismuth. 

A  sheet-copper  ornament  found  by  me  near  Montgomery,  Ala., 
in  a  mound  which  contained  many  articles  of  European  origin,  an 
alyzed  by  Dr  H.  F.  Keller,  yielded:  copper  97.425  percent  and 
ponderable  quantities  of  lead,  silver,  bismuth,  antimony,  arsenic,  iron, 
and  nickel. 

Here  we  see  the  great  list  of  impurities  which  appear  in  copper 
admittedly  smelted  from  the  arsenical,  sulphide  ores  of  Europe,  and 
this  was  the  only  kind  of  copper  Europeans  possessed  in  those 
days. 

Although  at  the  present  time,  in  Europe,  copper  is  smelted  by 
improved  processes  to  yield  a  high  percentage  of  the  pure  metal, 
yet  ponderable  quantities  of  many  impurities  still  remain  in  it. 
Analyses  of  modern  German  (Mansfeld)  copper  give  99.2  percent 
to  99.5  percent  of  the  pure  metal  and  ponderable  quantities  of  silver, 
gold,  arsenic,  antimony,  bismuth,  lead,  iron,  cobalt,  nickel,  sulphur, 
and  oxygen. 

In  conclusion,  then,  I  make  the  following  offer  to  those  who 
continue  to  maintain  that  all  the  sheet-copper  from  aboriginal 
mounds  is  of  European  origin,  or  to  cite  the  presence  of  sheet- 
copper  with  objects  in  mounds  irrespective  of  the  degree  of  purity 
of  the  copper,  as  a  proof  of  the  European  origin  of  these  objects. 
I  will  furnish  sheet-copper  from  aboriginal  mounds  in  Ohio  and  in 
Florida,  in  which  mounds  no  object  distinctly  of  European  make  was 
met  with,  and  will  name  an  expert  to  analyze  the  copper  in  conjunc 
tion  with  an  expert  named  by  the  other  side,  that  this  matter  may  be 
settled,  if  it  is  not  settled  already. 

I  doubt  not  that  those  who  have  carefully  followed  this  paper  will 
agree  with  me  that  the  results  of  analysis  will  show  a  copper  not 
only  far  purer  than  any  that  can  have  been  smelted  from  the 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOUNDS  33 

arsenical,  sulphide  ores  of  Europe  by  the  imperfect  processes  of  the 
fifteenth,  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries,  but  will 
give,  moreover,  a  far  shorter  list  of  impurities  than  copper  that  is 
smelted  in  Europe  even  at  the  present  day. 


DISCUSSION    BY   JOSEPH    D.    McGUIRE 

The  paper  just  read  is  apparently  due  largely  to  my  suggestion 
that  the  sheet-copper  found  by  Mr  Moore  in  the  sand  mounds  of 
Florida  owed  its  origin  to  European  influences.  The  two  volumes 
issued  by  him  illustrative  of  two  winters'  labor  in  Florida  are  works 
any  one  could  well  be  proud  of;  the  illustrations  are  most  excellent, 
and  from  them  we  are  able  to  judge  fairly  well  what  the  objects 
themselves  are,  and  what  their  ornamentation,  whether  that  of  a 
period  of  savagery  or  of  civilization. 

I  have  been  invited  by  Mr  Moore  to  give  my  views  on  the 
subject,  and  I  do  so  with  great  pleasure,  as  it  is  one  of  more  than 
ordinary  interest  to  archeology  and  to  archeologists. 

The  articles  found  by  Mr  Moore  consist  largely  of  objects  of 
extremely  thin  sheet-copper,  embossed  and  ornamented  commonly 
by  repousse  work  of  dots,  lines,  or  curves,  and  of  certain  pieces 
thinly  overlaying  objects  of  wood,  etc.  The  thinness  of  this  sheet- 
copper  may  be  judged  from  the  specimen  I  now  present,  which  was 
sent  to  me  by  Mr  Moore  some  years  since. 

It  will  not  be  questioned  that  the  metal  found  is  of  wonderful 
uniformity  if  it  belongs  to  a  pre-Columbian  period  and  owes  its  ori 
gin  to  a  people  living  in  a  pure  age  of  stone  and  of  savagery.  Its 
thinness  cannot  be  compared  with  anything  found  elsewhere  in  the 
Americas,  unless  it  be  with  certain  objects  found  in  the  mounds  of 
Ohio.  The  technical  skill  necessary  to  produce  such  material  is  of 
no  mean  order,  and  we  are  not  accustomed  to  place  the  primitive 
Floridian  in  the  human  family  above  the  average  in  culture  of  the 
American  Indian  as  he  was  first  found  by  Europeans.  Had  there 
been  a  people  producing  such  objects  at  the  advent  of  the  whites, 
can  it  be  questioned  that  such  a  fact  would  have  been  referred  to  by 
early  writers  who  have  recorded  everything  with  which  they  came 
in  contact  worthy  of  notice  ?  The  absence  of  such  reference, 


34  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

however,  is  merely  negative  and  proves  nothing,  but  it  is  testimony 
bearing  on  the  subject  and  consequently  is  worthy  of  consideration. 

I  shall  first  discuss  the  subject  from  a  technological  standpoint, 
being  able  in  that  respect  to  advance  something  more  than  theory 
alone,  having  experimented  some  years  since  in  the  U.  S.  National 
Museum  for  two  or  three  months  in  hammering  copper,  both  cold 
and  hot,  with  stone  implements  chiefly,  but  also  with  a  metal  ham 
mer  on  an  anvil. 

The  crude  metal  is  primarily  in  the  condition  it  comes  from  the 
mine  ;  that  is,  in  the  nugget  or  in  the  sheet  as  found  in  the  fissure 
of  the  rock.  There  is  some  evidence  of  prehistoric  melting  of 
metals  among  the  more  highly  developed  people  of  South  America 
and  Central  America,  but  none  referring  to  such  methods  being 
practised  by  the  aborigines  of  the  United  States.  If  I  am  correct, 
we  must  treat  the  subject  as  work  performed  by  means  of  some 
process  of  blows  or  pressure,  the  sheet  by  blows  of  a  stone  hammer 
upon  a  piece'of  metal  lying  on  a  hard  surface.  Among  the  finds  in 
the  Florida  mounds  I  observe  no  reference  to  implements  with  or 
upon  with  such  sheets  could  be  made  at  all  approaching  those  found 
by  Mr  Moore. 

Experimenting  with  copper  from  the  mines  of  the  Lake  Superior 
region,  I  found,  in  each  instance  of  many  made  upon  nuggets  of 
varying  sizes,  that  almost  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  hammer 
ing  process  the  metal  began  to  crumble  and  continued  to  do  so 
whether  it  was  hammered  cold  or  hot.  After  experimenting  with 
stone  tools,  those  of  steel  were  resorted  to  with  results  little  if  any 
better,  so  far  as  producing  sheet-copper  was  concerned.  With  a 
sheet  of  native  Virginia  copper  much  better  results  were  obtained 
with  stone  tools,  and  the  process  was  entirely  successful  to  the  point 
corresponding  to  that  referred  to  by  one  of  the  early  writers  who 
spoke  of  the  natives  having  metal  which  could  easily  be  bent  between 
the  fingers.  By  using  an  anvil  and  a  steel  hammer,  naturally  much 
better  results  could  be  obtained. 

A  second  suggestion  contradictory  to  the  belief  that  these  objects 
were  of  native  conception,  is  the  embossed  work  on  most  of  the 
objects  to  which  reference  is  made  in  Mr  Moore's  publications. 
The  magnificent  object  over  ten  inches  broad  here  shown  from  the 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER    FROM  THE   MOUNDS  35 

Mt  Royal  mound,  from  an  esthetic  point  of  view  suggests  European 
influence  and  is  far  superior  to  any  object  of  admittedly  pre-Colum 
bian  origin.  The  typical  repousse  work  suggests  a  familiarity  with 
characteristic  metal-work  of  Europe  not  consistent  with  savage 
methods  or  culture. 

From  Peru,  throughout  the  Gold  Coast,  through  Central  Amer 
ica,  and  throughout  eastern  United  States  as  far  north  as  Canada, 
every  early  traveler  refers  to  metal  being  possessed  by  the  natives, 
and  that  metal  copper,  though  it  is  contended  that  no  single  refer 
ence  to  really  primitive  metal  refers  to  embossed  work  such  as  Mr 
Moore  presents  in  his  publication. 

The  pipes  from  Tick  island  and  Grant  mound  do  not  by  their 
form  suggest  great  antiquity  to  the  writer,  although  next  to  the 
straight  tube  they  are  in  the  writer's  estimation  one  of  the  oldest 
of  pipe  forms. 

A  canine  tooth  found  at  Tick  island,  according  to  Cope,  was  not 
wolf,  nor  coyote,  but  dog,  and  this  was  found  in  the  shell  base. 
That  the  mounds  varied  in  age  Mr  Moore  does  not  question,  but 
his  argument  that  not  finding  European  objects  in  a  mound  is  evi 
dence  of  their  being  pre-Columbian  cannot  be  admitted  as  a  scien 
tific  fact. 

The  age  of  objects  of  copper  in  America,  especially  if  from  the 
mounds,  wherever  situated,  is  by  no  means  so  universally  accepted 
as  Mr  Moore's  paper  suggests  to  be  the  case. 

The  allusion  in  my  publication  on  pipes  l  questioning  the  Amer 
ican  origin  of  copper  in  the  mounds,  relates  to  pipes  of  the  "  mound 
type"  being  usually  associated  with  objects  of  copper  and  therefore 
showing  European  influences.  This  assertion  I  desire  to  reiterate. 
But  the  "  mound  pipe"  as  my  publication  shows,  owes  its  origin,  in 
the  writer's  opinion,  to  the  metal  file,  and  the  " mound  pipe"  is  not 
found  in  Florida. 

If  through  inadvertance,  as  suggested,  I  have  made  it  appear  to 
others  that  Mr  Moore  has  in  any  way  been  misquoted,  no  one  can 
regret  it  more  than  I  do  ;  but  reading  over  the  paragraph  carefully, 
I  do  not  see  that  Mr  Moore  is  quoted  as  other  than  the  discoverer 
of  the  objects  referred  to. 

1  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.  Rept.,  1897,  p.  523,  etc. 


36  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

The  writer  believes  that  the  American  Indian  was  an  apt  pupil, 
possessed  of  rude  implements  of  copper  at  the  advent  of  the  whites. 
He  learned  in  Florida  in  1518,  and  subsequent  to  the  destruction 
of  the  Narvaez  expedition,  much  of  the  use  of  metal  ;  he  learned 
more  from  the  De  Soto  expedition  in  I  540  ;  he  traded  with  Raleigh's 
expedition  in  1584-85;  and  Captain  John  Smith  repeatedly  refers 
to  trading  copper  with  Powhatan,  who  was  no  exception  to  the 
Indian  who  was  always  eager  to  possess  the  shining  kettles  of 
the  European. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  suggest  that  the  repousse  work  appears 
in  European  armor  of  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  cen 
turies,  and  that  possession  of  metal  by  the  natives  was  greatly  added 
to  by  trade  with  the  whites,  by  wrecks,  and  later  by  mining. 

MR  MOORE'S  REPLY  TO  MR  McGuiRE 

Mr  McGuire's  reply  to  my  paper  on  aboriginal  copper,  which 
was  read  before  Section  H  at  the  last  meeting  of  the  A.  A.  A.  S., 
has  courteously  been  submitted  to  me. 

It  should  be  a  matter  of  congratulation  to  archeologists  that 
one  so  well  known  as  Mr  McGuire  has  come  forward  to  state  his 
grounds  of  disbelief  in  sheet-copper  of  purely  aboriginal  origin,  since 
arguments  on  both  sides,  when  presented  together  in  the  Anthro 
pologist,  must  greatly  add  to  a  clear  understanding  of  the  matter. 
It  must  be  a  subject  of  regret  to  all,  however,  that  to  the  chemical 
side  of  my  paper,  where  assertions  pro  and  con  are  capable  of  exact 
determination,  Mr  McGuire  makes  no  reply  whatever. 

I  shall  now  take  up,  in  order,  the  points  advanced  by  Mr  Mc 
Guire  in  his  reply  to  that  part  of  my  paper  which  he  has  answered. 

It  is  impossible  to  judge  of  the  original  evenness  and  thickness 
of  the  sheet-copper  found  in  mounds,  especially  in  Florida  mounds, 
which  are  of  sand  and  allow  free  access  of  water,  thus  facilitating 
the  formation  of  the  oxide  and  of  the  carbonate  which,  in  the  course 
of  time,  considerably  impairs  the  original  volume  of  the  sheet- 
copper.  Indeed,  at  times,  in  these  mounds,  there  remains  of  an 
ornament  but  a  minute  fragment,  sometimes  only  a  stain  on  a  bone. 

The  sheet-copper  found  by  me  and  by  others  in  mounds  is  not 
of  uniform  thickness,  and  incidentally  it  may  be  said  that  no  two 


MOORE] 


SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOULDS 


37 


ornaments  from  the  mounds  are  exactly  alike.  Sheet-copper  orna 
ments  with  repousse  decoration  have  been  found  by  me,  not  alone  in 
Florida,  but  in  Georgia  and  in  Alabama.  Moreover,  sheet-copper 
ornaments  and  ornaments  overlaid  with  sheet-copper  have  been 
found  in  Tennessee,  while  the  deposits  of  copper  found  on  the  Hope- 
well  altars  and  in  other  mounds  of  Ohio  are  too  well  known  to  need 
extended  reference  here. 

The  presence  of  embossed  ornaments  is  not  unrecorded  by  early 
historians  as  Mr  McGuire  would  have  us  believe.  We  have  but  to 
turn  to  the  plates  of  Le  Moyne,  an  eye-witness,  in  De  Bry's  Florida, 
particularly  plates  xn,  xm,  xiv,  xvi,  and  xvm,  three  of  which  are 
reproduced  in  this  paper,  to  see  depicted  on  aborigines  the  very  type 
of  embossed  ornaments  which  I  have  taken  in  numbers  from  the 
Grant  mound  near  the  mouth  of  St  Johns  river,  which  must  have 
been  within  a  short  distance  of  where  the  ill-fated  French  Hugue 
nots  built  Fort  Caroline  in  I  564, 
and  near  where,  says  Laudon- 
niere,  lived  the  chief  "  Satour- 
ioua,  our  nearest  neighbor,  and 
on  whose  ground  we  built  our 
fort."  (See  plates  vin  to  x 
herein.) 

It  is  believed  that  the  point 
visited  when  the  expedition  from 
Fort  Caroline  sailed  up  the  river 
May  (St  Johns)  was  near  the 
northern  extremity  of  Lake 
George,  since  this  is  the  only 
lake  on  the  river  filling  the  con 
ditions  of  the  description.  If 
such  is  the  case,  the  headquar 
ters  of  the  great  chief  Outina 


FIG.  I. — Ornament  of  sheet-copper  from  the 
Mt  Royal  mound.      (Actual  size.) 


must  have  been  near  Mt  Royal,  where  I  found  numbers  of  embossed 
ornaments  of  sheet-copper,  including  one,  a  representation  of  which 
we  give  (figure  i),  closely  resembling  those  shown  by  Le  Moyne  on 
chief  Outina.  While  Le  Moyne  was  not  always  exact  as  to  details 
in  his  drawings,  yet  there  are  many  novelties  which  he  portrays  with 


38  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

comparative  fidelity,  including  scalps,  shell  drinking-cups,  shell  beads, 
ear-plugs,  ceremonial  fans,  serrated  spear-heads,  a  wooden  mace  as 
found  by  Mr  Gushing  at  Marco,  a  method  of  attaching  ornaments  by 
running  a  cord  or  sinew  through  the  center  and  knotting  on  the  out 
side,  etc.  Is  it  not  certain,  then,  that  copper  ornaments  the  exact  type 
of  those  found  by  me  in  mounds  of  St  Johns  river,  situated  on  the 
very  spots  visited  by  the  Huguenots  with  whom  Le  Moyne  was, 
must  have  been  seen  by  him  on  the  aborigines,  as  portrayed  by  him? 

There  are  slabs  of  stone  and  abundance  of  hammer-stones  and 
pebble-hammers  in  the  Florida  mounds,  which  would  have  served 
well  for  the  manufacture  of  sheet-copper.  I  am  not  prepared  to 
demonstrate,  however,  that  copper  ornaments  found  in  Florida 
were  made  there,  though  I  do  not  see  why  they  should  not  have 
been. 

I  do  not  see  for  what  purpose  Mr  McGuire  has  referred  to  his 
ill-success  with  Lake  Superior  copper,  which,  as  the  reader  is  aware, 
is  native  copper.  Is  it  to  show  that  "  Lake"  copper  is  not  malle 
able,  and,  therefore,  that  sheet-copper  ornaments  could  not  have 
been  made  from  it  ?  It  is  too  well  known  that  very  much  of  the 
copper  from  Lake  Superior  is  malleable  to  call  for  further  discussion. 

As  to  embossed  work  showing  European  influence,  as  Mr  Mc 
Guire  states,  it  can  be  said  in  opposition  that  embossed  work  is 
shown  in  De  Bry  and  that  it  is  extremely  unlikely  that  in  a  com 
paratively  short  time  objects  made  by,  or  with  the  aid  of,  Narvaez' 
or  De  Soto's  men  could  have  been  widely  spread  throughout  Florida. 

As  to  the  breast-plate  from  Mt  Royal  (figure  i),  I  would  say 
that  to  many  archeologists  it  does  not  of  necessity  suggest  Euro 
pean  influence  and  is  not  believed  to  be  far  superior  to  any  object 
of  pre-Columbian  origin. 

It  is  contended  by  Mr  McGuire  that  no  single  reference  by 
early  travelers  to  really  primitive  metal  refers  to  embossed  work 
such  as  is  shown  in  my  publications.  It  would  be  hard  to  prove 
just  what  style  of  copper  is  referred  to  by  early  travelers  in  certain 
cases.  They  did  not  always  go  into  minute  details,  sometimes 
speaking  of  "a  vessel  of  wood,"  "a  vessel  of  clay,"  etc.,  and  em 
bossed  work  might  not  be  deemed  worthy  of  especial  description. 
We  have  seen,  however,  how,  when  it  became  necessary  for  Le 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM  THE   MOUNDS  39 

Moyne,  the  artist  who  accompanied  the  Huguenots  to  Florida  and 
was  with  them  at  Fort  Caroline,  to  show  xvhat  he  had  seen,  em 
bossed  ornaments  were  faithfully  portrayed. 

The  pipes  from  Tick  island  and  the  Grant  mound  do  not  sug 
gest  great  antiquity  to  Mr  McGuire.  It  seems  hardly  fair  for  Mr 
McGuire  here  to  cite  the  presence  of  certain  pipes  in  these  mounds 
in  order  to  show  a  comparatively  recent  origin  for  the  copper  found 
with  them,  and  then  in  his  work  on  pipes  to  instance  the  presence 
of  copper  to  show  a  late  origin  for  pipes. 

I  freely  admit  that  the  remains  of  a  dog  were  found  by  me  in 
the  base  of  the  Tick  island  mound  and  that  they  were  contemporary 
with  the  mound.  Surely  Mr  McGuire  does  not  cite  this  to  show 
European  intercourse  with  the  makers  of  the  mound.  The  exis 
tence  of  the  aboriginal  dog  is  admitted.  Cabega  de  Vaca,  one  of 
Narvaez'  men  (1527  and  later),  who  spent  some  time  in  north 
west  Florida,  repeatedly  refers  to  numbers  of  dogs.  White  men 
could  not  have  distributed  these  animals  through  Florida  at  this 
early  period.1 

It  is  true  that  not  finding  European  objects  in  a  mound  is  not 
absolute  proof  that  the  mound  is  pre-Columbian,  but  it  is  a  strong 
argument  to  that  effect,  and  when  a  number  of  large  mounds  in  a 
district,  as  is  the  case  in  Florida,  or  all  the  mounds  in  a  district,  as 
in  the  Scioto  valley  (whence  came  the  famous  Hopewell  deposit  of 
sheet-copper  ornaments),  show  no  object  of  European  provenance, 
then  the  evidence  seems  very  strong  indeed.  Of  course  the  dis 
tinctly  intrusive  burial,  which  so  often  has  European  articles  with 
it,  must  not  be  cited  as  proof  of  the  post-Columbian  origin  of  a 
mound.  Incidentally  I  may  say  that  in  the  great  Grant  mound, 
in  Mt  Royal,  in  the  Tick  island  mound,  and  in  other  large  mounds 
of  Florida,  no  intrusive  burial  was  met  with. 

Mr  McGuire  believes  "the  age  of  objects  of  copper  in  America, 
especially  if  from  the  mounds,  wherever  situated,  is  by  no  means  so 
universally  accepted  as  Mr  Moore's  paper  suggests  to  be  the  case." 


1  The  dog  had  been  domesticated  and  was  used  as  a  beast  of  burden  also  by  the 
Apache  Indians  of  the  plains  of  Texas  at  least  as  early  as  1541.  For  references  to  dogs 
seen  by  members  of  Coronado's  expedition,  see  Winship,  "  Coronado  Expedition,"  in 
Fourteenth  Report,  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  passim.  —EDITOR. 


40  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

To  this  I  would  reply  that,  judging  from  letters  received  by  me 
when  my  original  paper  on  aboriginal  copper  was  published,  I  do 
not  think  Mr  McGuire  could  then  have  found  a  corporal's  guard 
among  the  archeologists  of  America  to  say  it  was  their  belief  that 
sheet-copper  from  the  mounds  is,  of  necessity,  of  European  origin, 
and  it  is  my  belief  that  Mr  McGuire  now  would  be  unable  to  name 
any  archeologist  of  note  in  the  United  States  who  shares  his  views 
as  to  copper.  I  trust  Mr  McGuire,  whom  I  esteem  most  highly 
personally,  will  pardon  me  when  I  say  that  I  have  undertaken  to 
show  what  I  believe  to  be  the  weakness  of  his  position  as  to  cop 
per,  not  because  I  consider  his  opinion  of  much  avail  as  against 
that  of  the  archeologists  of  the  United  States,  but  for  the  reason 
that  archeologists  of  Europe,  having  seen  Mr  McGuire's  views  as 
to  aboriginal  copper  in  a  Government  publication,  might  suppose 
these  views  met  with  endorsement  in  this  country,  which  is  cer 
tainly  not  the  case.  Mr  McGuire  has  kindly  consented  to  write  a 
few  lines  in  sur-rebuttal  of  this  reply  of  mine.  I  would  esteem  it 
a  favor  were  he  to  name,  for  the  benefit  of  the  archeologists  of 
Europe,  such  American  archeologists  as  share  his  views. 

By  stating  that  the  mound  pipe  has  not  been  found  in  Florida, 
it  seems  to  me  Mr  McGuire  weakens  his  argument  as  to  Florida 
copper,  from  his  standpoint.  Truth  compels  me  to  say,  however, 
that  I  have  found  "  monitor"  pipes  in  Florida  mounds,  though  not 
in  the  mounds  of  the  peninsular  part  of  the  state.1 

I  would  say,  however,  that  many  archeologists  disagree  with  Mr 
McGuire  as  to  the  presence  of  file  marks  on  mound  pipes  and  believe 
that  there  are  no  marks  on  them  but  could  have  been  made  with 
tools  of  stone. 

I  did  not  assert  in  my  paper  that  Mr  McGuire  had  not  given  me 
due  credit  as  discoverer  of  the  copper  objects  in  the  Georgia  mounds, 
but  I  did  think  that  Mr  McGuire,  inadvertently,  had  described  the 
objects  discovered  by  me  in  a  way  to  make  them  appear  of  European 
origin. 

As  to  the  copper  which  Mr  McGuire  says  was  acquired  by  the 
Indians  by  trading  and  by  shipwreck,  I  can  only  repeat  that  much 

1  Certain  Aboriginal  Remains  of  the  Nortfiwtst  Florida  Coasf,  part  n,  pages  225, 
238,  256,  fig.  213. 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOUNDS  41 

of  what  has  been  called  sheet-copper,  found  with  late  burials,  is  in 
reality  sheet-brass,  and  as  to  this  I  can  speak  from  personal  experi 
ence,  often  repeated,  and  that  the  so-called  copper  kettles  I  have 
seen  have  been  brass  kettles  and  that  such  sheet-copper  as  could 
have  been  procured  by  trading  or  by  shipwreck  would,  of  necessity, 
be  European  copper  and  that  European  copper  is  as  different  from 
native  copper  as  night  is  from  day  and  that  analysis  has  shown  the 
copper  from  mounds  in  Florida,  in  Ohio,  and  elsewhere  in  which  no 
object  distinctly  of  European  provenance  has  been  found,  to  be 
native  copper. 

In  conclusion  I  would  say  there  is  no  one  whose  conversion  to 
our  way  of  thinking  as  to  aboriginal  copper  would  be  more  wel 
come  than  that  of  one  who  has  given  so  much  attention  to  the  sub 
ject  as  has  Mr  McGuire,  and  it  would  seem  as  though  this  con 
summation  might  be  realized,  for  Mr  McGuire,  step  by  step,  is 
abandoning  his  original  position,  as  what  follows  will  clearly  show. 

In  his  interesting  memoir  on  pipes,  Mr  McGuire  says  (page 
523) :  "  His  reference  from  a  naturalist's  standpoint  naturally  ignores 
the  technological  consideration  of  the  subject,  as  well  as  the  con 
temporaneity  of  metal  in  the  mounds,  especially  copper." 

Here  Mr  McGuire  cites  the  presence  of  copper,  just  copper,  as 
a  proof  of  modern  origin. 

Continuing,  he  says,  "also  the  many  asserted  discoveries  of 
objects  of  undeniably  European  manufacture,  such  as  an  implement 
of  copper." 

Here  it  is  copper  wrought  into  implements,  at  which  Mr  Mc 
Guire  draws  the  line. 

Mr  McGuire  now  admits  in  his  answer  to  my  paper  that  rude 
implements  of  copper  were  in  the  possession  of  the  aborigines  be 
fore  white  contact ;  he  thus  abandons  his  former  position  as  to  the 
metal  copper  and  implements  of  copper. 

Now  we  come  to  the  next  step.  In  a  late  writing  Mr  McGuire 
cities  the  presence  of  s/ieet-coppcr  with  a  pipe  as  an  evidence  of  its 
European  origin.  Here  we  have  the  line  drawn  at  sheet- copper. 

But  now  Mr  McGuire,  in  his  reply  to  my  paper,  admits  that  he 
has  made  from  native  metal  a  copper  that  will  bend  backward  and 
forward,  and  cites  an  early  writer  to  show  that  copper  of  this  de- 


42  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

scription,  which  practically  was  sheet-copper,  was  found  by  the 
whites  in  the  possession  of  the  aborigines  ;  so  here  Mr  McGuire 
goes  still  another  step  farther,  to  rude  sheet-copper  in  pre-Colum 
bian  times. 

Finally,  in  his  reply  to  my  paper,  the  line  seems  to  be  drawn  at 
thin  and  uniformly  made  sheet-copper,  embossed  ;  so  Mr  McGuire 
seems  to  be  gradually  abandoning  his  contention  and  to  be  coming 
toward  us  step  by  step.  Let  us  hope  that  his  next  step  will  be  to 
throw  overboard  what  is  left  of  his  theory  as  to  copper  and  join  the 
camp  of  those  who,  relying  on  proofs,  —  historical,  technological, 
chemical,  and  of  association,  —  believe  in  the  purely  aboriginal 
origin  of  most  of  the  mound  copper. 

MR  McGuiRE's  CONCLUDING  REMARKS 

The  opinion  originally  expressed,  that  the  discovery  of  sheet- 
copper  among  aboriginal  remains,  wherever  found,  is  suggestive  of 
European  influence,  is  not  weakened  in  the  slightest  by  Mr  Moore's 
reply  to  my  criticism  of  his  paper,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  explain, 
following  the  order  of  his  remarks. 

It  cannot  justly  be  a  matter  for  regret  to  archeologists  that  I 
make  no  reply  to  the  "chemical  side  of  the  paper"  when  I  admit 
my  inability  to  do  so  from  a  chemical  standpoint,  and  would  conse 
quently  not  be  excusable  were  I  to  attempt  to  argue  a  subject  upon 
which  I  knew  I  was  incapable  of  intelligently  expressing  my  views. 

I  do  not  hesitate,  however,  to  venture  the  assertion  that  the 
formation  of  carbonate  and  oxides  has  not  impaired  the  original 
evenness  and  thinness  of  Mr  Moore's  copper  finds  to  a  degree  suffi 
cient  to  prevent  our  seeing  enough  to  form  a  fair  estimate  of  the 
original  appearance  of  these  interesting  objects,  the  technique  of 
which  is  so  indicative  of  an  art  peculiarly  un-American,  as  is  shown 
in  Mr  Moore's  figure  I.  There  is  an  evenness  about  it  and  a 
regularity  suggestive  of  the  handiwork  of  a  skilled  metal-worker, 
and  if  that  worker  was  an  Indian  the  white  man  must  have  taught 
him  the  use  of  the  tools.  That  the  Indian  in  certain  localities  was 
an  apt  pupil  in  metal  work  is  related  by  more  than  one  historian  of 
Mexico  and  Peru,  who  early  observed  that  in  working  metal  the 
Indian  quickly  surpassed  his  Spanish  teacher  in  skill. 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM  THE   MOUNDS  43 

The  repousse  work,  consisting  of  dots,  lines,  and  curves  (includ 
ing  circles)  impressed  on  thin  sheet-copper,  as  shown  by  Mr 
Moore's  discoveries,  means  infinitely  more  than  the  mere  hammer 
ing  down  of  a  nugget,  for  evenness  had  to  be  maintained  through 
out,  and  when  attained  it  was  requisite  that  it  be  continued  through 
out  the  whole  process  of  creating  the  repousse  decoration  or  effect. 

The  amount  of  copper  found  by  Mr  Moore  in  his  excavations 
indicates  a  source  of  supply  more  abundant  than  can  be  imagined  to 
have  been  furnished  by  aboriginal  trade,  regardless  of  whether  the 
supply  came  from  Lake  Superior  or  from  Virginia,  though  such 
supply  could  have  been  furnished  by  the  whites,  with  whom  w<e 
know  the  Indians,  from  the  very  beginning,  and  from  the  St  Law 
rence  to  the  Rio  Grande,  traded  for  copper. 

Le  Moyne,  the  artist  and  author  of  the  De  Bry  plates,  was  in 
Florida  with  the  expedition  of  Rene  Laudonniere,  about  1565.  The 
plates  referred  to  are  in  De  Bry's  Brevis  Narratio  which  constitutes 
part  2  of  the  Collectiones  Perigrinatiomim,  published  in  Frank-fort  - 
on-the-Main  in  1591.  Of  this  work  Joseph  Sabin,  in  his  Diction 
ary  of  Books  Relating  to  America,  says:  "It  is  true  that  numerous 
plates  were  added  to  these  texts,  but  they  had  been  made  for  the 
most  part  after  fanciful  designs,  adapted,  some  well,  some  ill."  Mr 
Moore,  in  apology,  however,  himself  suggests  Le  Moyne's  want  of 
exactness  as  to  details.  But  admitting,  for  the  sake  of  the  argu 
ment,  Mr  Moore's  contention  that  Le  Moyne  did  see  these  objects, 
I  would  call  attention  to  plate  42,  one  of  the  series  in  this  same 
volume,  which  represents  an  Indian  standing  over  a  French  prisoner 
in  the  act  of  killing  him  with  an  axe,  the  axe  having  an  eye  to  it  and 
a  helve  in  the  eye.  Therefore,  to  follow  Mr  Moore's  line  of  argu 
ment,  we  should  believe  that  the  natives  possessed  such  axes  prior 
to  the  arrival  of  the  whites,  although  we  have  Laudonniere's  asser 
tion  that  he  compensated  the  natives  who  sent  him  presents,  with 
axes,  knives,  glass  beads,  and  mirrors. 

The  plates  represent,  let  us  admit,  metal  plates  ;  they  hang  on 
the  breasts  of  the  natives  and  from  their  girdles,  and  in  the  fore 
ground  of  one  illustration  are  represented  quite  a  pile  of  them.  In 
De  Bry's  plate  12  a  native  sorcerer  is  represented  as  kneeling  in 
U  Ottigny's  shield,  which  is  of  the  exact  type  of  the  metal  plates 


44  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

figured.  Let  us  go  one  step  further  in  this  interesting  inspection. 
Laudonniere  records  that  these  natives  told  him  that  their  women 
danced  with  plates  of  gold  hanging  from  their  girdles,  the  greater 
part  of  which  came  from  the  Spanish  ships  wrecked  fifteen  years 
before  (or  about  1550),  and  that  numerous  ships  were  wrecked  in 
the  straits.  In  the  legends  describing  the  forty-t\vo  plates  of  De 
Bry's  second  volume,  there  is  not  a  word  of  reference  to  copper 
ornaments,  an  omission  which  would  appear  very  singular  were  one 
to  suppose  Le  Moyne's  figures  accurate. 

Hariot,  in  1585,  referring  to  the  Raleigh  expedition,  describes 
conditions  more  accurately  when  he  refers  to  receiving  twenty-six 
deer-skins  in  exchange  for  a  copper  kettle,  which  the  Indian  im 
mediately  knocked  a  hole  in  and  suspended  from  his  neck  as  an 
ornament ;  and  this  occurred  on  the  Carolina  coast,  presumably 
nearer  the  source  of  aboriginal  copper  supply  than  was  Florida. 
At  this  time  Ralph  Lane  wrote  from  Roanoke  to  the  Company  in 
England  that  they  could  do  no  better  than  to  send  over  copper 
articles  of  all  kinds  with  which  to  trade,  quaintly  expressing  his 
views  that  "  copper  caryeth  all  so  it  be  red." 

I  agree  with  Mr  Moore  that  copper  ornaments  found  in  Florida 
could  have  been  made  there  as  well  as  anywhere ;  but  that  signifies 
nothing,  for  the  plates,  if  made  in  Florida,  must  have  been  fash 
ioned  through  white  influence,  as  shown  in  every  line,  and  by  their 
evenness  and  their  curves.  My  reference  to  working  nugget  cop 
per  from  the  Lake  Superior  region  was  given  for  the  purpose  of 
recording  my  own  experience  —  to  show  that  /  could  not  work  it, 
although  the  specimens  were  sent  to  me  as  the  most  ductile  they 
had  in  the  region.  But  I  did  work  a  piece  of  fissure  copper,  from 
Virginia,  to  such  thinness  that  I  could  bend  it  with  the  hand. 

Regarding  the  embossed  work  figured  in  De  Bry's  illustrations, 
I  submit  there  is  no  more  reason  to  attribute  it  to  savage  origin 
than  there  is  to  so  attribute  the  eyed  axe  above  referred  to. 

Narvaez  was  in  Florida  in  1528;  twelve  years  later  De  Soto 
passed  through  the  country  ;  both  lost  men  there,  and  the  numerous 
Spanish  wrecks  on  the  coast  must  have  thrown  many  men  into  the 
hands  of  the  natives  up  to  the  time  of  Laudonniere,  from  whom 
the  natives  could  have  learned  the  art  of  copper  working.  Le 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOUNDS  45 

Moyne,  if  he  saw  the  plates,  recorded  also  seeing  the  eyed  axe.  If 
seeing  the  plates  made  them  aboriginal,  what  prevents  the  same 
argument  from  applying  to  the  axe  ? 

Having  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  aboriginal  American  pipes, 
or  perhaps  I  should  say  primitive  pipes,  there  can  surely  be  no 
objection  to  my  drawing  deductions  from  personal  experience,  espe 
cially  where  it  is  confined  strictly  to  a  line  along  which  I  am  sup 
posed  to  be  able  to  form  them  intelligently. 

I  do  not  deny  the  existence  of  dogs  in  Florida  before  the  coining 
of  the  whites,  nor  do  I  admit  it.  I  would  say,  however,  that  the 
want  of  references  to  dogs  in  the  literature  of  the  region  indicates 
the  probable  absence  of  that  animal,  though  the  Coronado  expedi 
tion  found  dogs  in  the  west  in  1541  used  as  pack-animals,  while 
Cabe^a  de  Vaca  refers  to  dogs  hundreds  of  miles  west  of  where  Mr 
Moore's  discovery  of  a  dog  bone  was  made. 

I  do  assert  that  the  presence  of  dog  bones  in  mounds  is  sug 
gestive  of  European  intercourse,  and  the  same  argument  applies  in 
the  case  of  the  finding  of  the  bones  of  the  great  auk  in  a  Florida 
shell-heap,  which  gave  rise  to  much  discussion  as  to  how  they  got 
there.  My  suggestion  that  they  may  have  been  brought  as  sea 
stores  by  early  voyagers  was  not  received  as  worthy  of  considera 
tion,  but  when  so  distinguished  an  osteologist  as  F.  A.  Lucas  rec 
ognizes  from  the  same  shell-heap  "  the  humerus  of  a  typical  dachs 
hund,"  l  the  suggestion  I  first  made  becomes  almost  a  certainty,  for 
the  dog  bone  came  from  the  same  part  of  the  heap  as  did  the  bones 
of  the  great  auk. 

I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not  reiterate  my  remark  "  that 
the  age  of  copper  objects  in  mounds  is  by  no  means  so  universally 
accepted  as  Mr  Moore  suggests."  In  this  category  I  include  also 
the  finds  in  the  Hopewell  deposit  as  a  matter  of  course.  I  claim 
that  sheet-copper  is  suggestive  of  European  influence  and  have 
difficulty  in  believing  Mr  Moore  serious  in  asking  of  me  the  name 
of  "any  archeologist  of  note  who  shares  my  views  as  to  copper." 
I  have  asserted  that  there  were  such,  and  reassert  it  now.  I  may 
go  even  further  and  say  that  I  can  name  one  archeologist  of  inter 
national  reputation  who  agrees  with  me  that  the  thin  sheet-copper 

1  Science,  February  20,  1903. 


46  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGISrr  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

with  repousse  work  on  it  owes  its  origin  to  European  influence,  but 
I  have  no  right  to  bring  others  into  a  controversy  for  which  Mr 
Moore  and  presumably  others  hold  me  alone  responsible,  a  position 
which  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  defend.  I  can  only  feel  grateful  to  Mr 
Moore  for  his  personal  opinion  expressed  of  me  individually,  even 
though  he  does  not  consider  my  opinion  of  "much  avail"  on  the 
copper  question.  But  let  us  keep  to  the  text  and  argue  our  sub 
ject  to  archeologists,  who  form  our  jury. 

In  such  papers  as  I  have  written  for  publication  by  our  National 
Museum  I  have  never  thought  for  an  instant  that  any  one  could 
suppose  what  I  have  said  should  be  considered  to  have  official  sig 
nificance,  for  my  work  was  solely  that  of  a  volunteer  who  had  made 
a  study  which  was  regarded  as  of  sufficient  value  for  publication 
by  the  Museum  and  which  would  be  accepted  by  students  as  the 
author's  opinion  and  entirely  on  its  own  merits. 

Pipes  of  all  forms  in  the  United  States,  except  the  tubular  pipe, 
as  I  have  shown  in  my  paper,  belong  in  contiguous  areas.  To  this 
I  know  of  no  exception.  Both  the  mound  type  of  pipe  and  the 
monitor  pipe  I  have  asserted  to  be  of  comparatively  recent  origin, 
for  the  reason  that  in  places  on  certain  of  them  are  observed  a  num 
ber  of  flat  surfaces  or  facets,  and  in  or  on  these  facets  appear  series 
of  three,  four,  and  five  (commonly  the  latter),  straight  lines,  par 
allel  and  equidistant.  These  facets  /  can  intimate  only  with  a  file. 
I  cannot  reproduce  them  with  any  stone  tool,  and  could  only  be  con 
vinced  to  the  contrary  by  some  one  actually  reproducing  the  mark 
ing  or  something  slightly  resembling  it.  I  have  explained  my  views 
on  this  subject  to  many  archeologists,  and  assert  that,  up  to  the 
present,  from  no  one  have  I  heard  a  suggestion  indicating  a  method 
by  which  the  work  could  be  imitated.  When  it  is  shown  to  be  due 
to  an  Indian  method  of  work  I  will  be  glad  to  accept  the  proof,  for 
no  good  will  be  gained  by  maintaining  a  contrary  course.  Those 
pipes,  considered  artistically,  are  indicative  in  every  line  of  Euro 
pean  technique. 

Mr  Moore's  assertion  that  the  copper  which  I  suggest  was 
acquired  by  the  Indians  through  trade  and  by  shipwreck  was  sheet- 
brass  as  he  can  assert  "  from  personal  experience,  often  repeated," 
brings  into  the  controversy  the  assertions  of  Hariot,  Smith,  and 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOUNDS  47 

others  that  the  Indians  so  traded,  and  further,  examples  of  copper 
kettles  in  the  National  Museum,  of  European  make,  worked  into 
ornaments,  are  too  numerous  to  admit  of  doubt  as  to  their  existence. 

For  Mr  Moore's  kind  wishes  for  my  conversion  "  to  our  way 
of  thinking,"  I  feel  very  grateful,  and  join  freely  in  his  wish,  for 
its  accomplishment  is  but  a  prerequisite  to  conviction  of  error,  and 
when  Mr  Moore  or  any  other  person  maintaining  a  similar  belief 
offers  suitable  proof  to  overcome  my  scepticism  on  this  subject,  I 
will  gladly  proclaim  my  conversion. 

I  have  never  denied  the  possession  of  copper  by  the  aboriginal 
Americans  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  practically  all  early  voy 
agers,  from  the  Cabots  and  Verazzano  to  Cartier  and  Smith,  refer 
to  the  use  of  it,  one  writer  saying  they  had  it  of  a  thinness  allow 
ing  of  its  being  bent  between  the  fingers. 

Every  step  of  Mr  Moore's  argument  in  his  reply  to  my  re 
marks  only  emphasizes  what  I  have  contended  from  the  beginning, 
and  have  never  abandoned,  that  sheet-copper  found  in  the  mounds, 
or  elsewhere,  is  strongly  suggestive  of  European  influence,  conse 
quently  I  fail  to  see  what  has  been  "  thrown  overboard";  but,  to 
quote  Mr  Moore's  words,  "  relying  on  proofs,  historical,  technolog 
ical,  and  of  association,"  there  is  not  a  particle  of  valid  evidence  to 
sustain  the  contention  of  Mr  Moore  as  to  the  aboriginal  origin  of 
most  sheet-copper.  On  the  contrary  the  natives  did  possess  and 
work  copper  rudely  and  as  a  malleable  stone.  But  when  copper 
is  found  in  thin  sheets  and  those  sheets  are  embossed  and  orna 
mented  with  repousse  work ;  and  when  spear-heads  are  furnished 
with  sockets,  and  the  sockets  are  furnished  with  nail  holes,  we  may 
safely  assert  that  white  influences  are  proven. 

Of  the  excellence  of  Mr  Moore's  work  all  American  archeol- 
ogists  are  proud,  and  its  appreciation  is  neither  enhanced  nor  less 
ened  by  the  age  of  his  finds.  I  even  admit  that  the  opinion  of  a 
majority  of  archeologists  is  adverse  to  my  own  on  the  subject  of  the 
origin  of  mound  copper  ;  nevertheless  I  maintain  the  correctness  of 
my  views.  An  auk  bone  in  one  place  and  with  a  dachshund  ac 
companiment,  a  glass  bead  in  another,  a  crucifix  in  another,  a  fer 
rule  in  another,  medals  in  different  localities,  finger  rings,  curved 
base  mound  pipes,  and  even  molded  pipes  with  their  artistic  finish, 


4$  AMERICA  A7  AATTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

are  all  straws  pointing  in  the  single  direction  toward  the  first  set 
tlers,  French,  Dutch,  and  English,  with  their  knowledge  of  artistic 
treatment  and  mechanical  skill. 

The  case  is  not  unlike  that  of  the  paleolith.  A  few  years  ago 
all  believed  it  indicative  of  a  low  stage  of  culture  in  America  and 
elsewhere.  A  few  of  us,  after  experiment,  recognized  in  the  paleo 
lith  a  mere  reject,  the  shape  of  which  could  not  be  improved.  At 
first  this  was  considered,  like  the  case  under  discussion,  heterodox; 
but  a  few  were  convinced  in  time,  after  thorough  investigation,  of 
the  proper  position  of  the  so-called  paleolith.  There  are  yet  those 
in  America  who  place  their  faith  in  the  paleolithic  period,  but  they 
are  gradually  lessening  in  number.  Our  European  contemporaries 
will,  in  time,  be  convinced  of  their  error  we  feel  sure.  For  myself, 
the  thin  sheet-copper,  considered  from  any  point  of  view,  with  its 
repousse  work  has  even  less  to  stand  upon  and  will  in  time  be 
placed  in  the  position  to  which  it  belongs,  and  that  certainly  post- 
Columbian. 

Since  concluding  my  remarks  above  I  have  re-read  Dr  Cyrus 
Thomas'  paper  on  "  Mound  Explorations  "  in  the  Twelfth  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology.  Referring  to  certain  well-known 
plates  from  the  Etowah  mounds,  in  which  the  repousse  work  is 
prominent,  Dr  Thomas  says  (page  308) :  "  That  they  were  not  made 
by  an  aboriginal  artisan  of  Central  America  or  Mexico  of  ante- 
Columbian  times,  I  think  is  probable,  if  not  from  the  designs  them 
selves,  from  the  apparent  evidence  that  the  work  was  done  in  part 
with  hard  metallic  tools."  Again  (page  711):  "What  is  here 
affirmed,  and  what,  it  is  believed,  can  be  successfully  maintained  by 
reference  to  and  inspection  of  the  articles,  is,  that  many  of  them, 
found  in  the  mounds  as  well  as  ancient  graves,  have  been  made  from 
sheets  of  copper  so  uniform  and  even  as  to  forbid  the  belief  that 
they  were  hammered  out  with  the  rude  implements  possessed  by 
the  mound-builders  of  pre-Columbian  times."  Dr  Thomas  suggests 
that  a  careful  chemical  and  microscopical  examination  might  settle 
the  point.  I  have  submitted  these  quoted  remarks  to  Dr  Thomas, 
who  says  he  is  of  the  same  opinion  still.  I  submit  that  Dr  Thomas' 
name  will  satisfy  Mr  Moore's  request  and  be  an  answer  upon  which 
both  American  and  European  archeologists  may  ponder. 


MR.  MOORE'S  REPLY  TO  MR.  McGUIRE'S 
CLOSING  REMARKS. 


(The  following  was  written  after  the  appearance  of  the  sympo 
sium  as  to  aboriginal  copper,  which  appeared  in  the  "American 
Anthropologist,"  January-March,  1903.) 

There  are  certain  points  in  Mr.  McGuire's  interesting  closing 
remarks  in  the  "  Anthropologist "  that  seem  to  need  comment  and 
explanation. 

Mr.  McGuire  says  :  ' '  The  amount  of  copper  found  by  Mr. 
Moore  in  his  excavations  indicates  a  source  of  supply  more  abund 
ant  than  can  be  imagined  to  have  been  furnished  by  aboriginal 
trade,  regardless  of  whether  the  supply  came  from  Lake  Superior  or 
from  Virginia,  though  such  supply  could  have  been  furnished  by 
the  whites,  with  whom  we  know  the  Indians,  from  the  very  begin 
ning,  and  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Rio  Grande,  traded  for 
copper. ' ' 

The  amount  of  copper  found  by  me  is,  in  reality,  very  limited, 
and  especially  so,  considering  the  twelve  years  I  have  given  to 
mound  work  and  the  many  scores  of  mounds  I  have  demolished. 
If  Mr.  McGuire  makes  this  assertion  as  to  copper,  what  can  he  say 
as  to  the  vast  numbers  of  polished  ' '  celts  ' '  which  have  been  taken 
from  Florida  mounds  ?  These  ' '  celts  ' '  are  wrought  from  rocks  not 
found  in  Florida  and  come  from  northern  Georgia  or  farther  away. 
In  bulk  and  weight  they  exceed  the  copper  a  thousand  fold,  and  yet 
they  reached  Florida  through  aboriginal  trade. 

By  this  assertion  of  Mr.  McGuire  that  the  copper  found  by  me 
in  Florida  indicates  a  source  of  supply  more  abundant  than  can  be 
imagined  to  have  been  furnished  by  aboriginal  trade,  he  shuts  him 
self  out  from  alleging  that  the  aborigines,  taught  by  Europeans, 
made  these  sheet-copper  ornaments  from  native  copper  in  their  pos 
session.  The  reader  will  please  bear  this  point  in  mind.  The  copper 
must  be  European,  according  to  Mr.  McGuire,  yet  by  chemical 
analysis  copper  from  the  mounds  in  which,  except  superficially,  no 
artifacts  surely  of  European  provenance  are  found,  is  shown  to  be 
native  copper  not  obtainable  in  Europe,  and  this  native  copper  is 
the  material  of  which  practically  all  the  ornaments  found  by  me  in 


ii  Mr.  Moore's  Reply  to 

Florida,  Georgia  and  Alabama  are  made,  and  native  copper  is  the 
material  of  the  ornaments  from  the  Turner  and  the  Hopewell  mounds 
of  Ohio,  and  the  Htowah  mounds  of  Georgia,  and  the  stone  graves  of 
Tennessee,  as  well  as  of  the  solid  implements  of  Wisconsin  and  of 
Canada,  and  of  the  copper  objects  of  other  districts  in  the  United 
States,  which  are  found  unassociated  with  European  artifacts. 

Should  Mr.  McGuire,  however,  shift  his  position,  as  the  careful 
reader  will  recall  he  has  done  more  than  once  since  first  he  wrote 
about  copper,  and  say  that  the  aborigines  did  not  depend  on  Euro 
pean  copper  and  brass,  but  under  tuition  of  the  whites,  used  native 
copper  which  was  among  them,  he  would  strengthen  his  position  to 
a  certain  extent,  but  would  still  find  himself  face  to  face  with  the 
testimony  of  the  mounds,  which  is  practically  conclusive. 

Of  Le  Moyne's  plates  from  De  Bry,  cited  by  me,  Mr.  McGuire 
says:  "The  plates  referred  to  are  in  De  Bry's  Brews  Narratio, 
which  constitutes  Part  2  of  the  Collectiones  Perigrinationum,  pub 
lished  in  Frankfort-on-the-Main  in  1591.  Of  this  work  Joseph 
Sabin,  in  his  Dictionary  of  Books  Relating  to  America,  says  :  '  It  is 
true  that  numerous  plates  were  added  to  these  texts,  but  they  had 
been  made  for  the  most  part  after  fanciful  designs,  adapted,  some 
well,  some  ill.'  " 

If  the  reader  will  now  kindly  consult  Mr.  McGuire' s  exhaustive 
memoir  on  ' '  Pipes  and  Smoking  Customs  of  the  American  Aborigi 
nes,"  Report  of  the  National  Musuem,  1897,  pages  414  and  415,  the 
reader  will  be  interested  to  see  the  following  statement  by  Mr. 
McGuire  :  ' '  Fig.  45  is  one  of  the  earliest  representations  of  the 
American  pipe,  showing  a  separate  stem,  drawn  after  an  illustration 
of  De  Bry,  in  Brevis  Narratio.8  The  woman  is  represented  as  furn 
ishing  the  man  with  leaves  from  a  bowl  or  basket  of  the  period  of 
L,audonniere's  visit  to  that  part  of  the  territory  then  called  Florida, 
which  covered  an  indefinite  geographical  area."  With  this,  is  a 
representation  of  an  Indian  smoking  in  the  presence  of  a  woman, 
taken  from  De  Bry .  Below  this  representation  is,  "Fig.  45.  FLORI- 
DIAN  SMOKING.  After  De  Bry.  Brevis  Narratio" 

Mr.  McGuire,  in  his  own  publication,  omits  all  reference  to  "fan 
ciful  designs"  and  the  like.  Mr.  McGuire,  who  is  a  lawyer,  and 
hence  accustomed  to  special  pleading,  here  makes  use  of  it,  uncon 
sciously,  no  doubt,  but,  nevertheless,  it  is  a  little  hard  for  one  who 

"3  Brevis  Narratio,  Book  II,  plate  xx,  Frankfort,  1591,  published  by  Jacob 
Le  Moyne."     \sic.~\ 


Mr.   McGuire*s  Closing  Remarks.  in 

is  conducting  a  scientific  discussion  with  Mr.  McGuire,  to  have  him 
make  use  of  a  witness  on  one  occasion  to  demonstrate  something  he 
wishes  to  demonstrate  and  then,  afterward,  to  impeach  the  relia 
bility  of  this  very  witness  in  order  to  try  to  discredit  something  else 
that  it  suits  Mr.  McGuire  to  discredit. 

I  wish  to  point  out  here,  since  I  am  on  the  subject  of  special 
pleading,  that  in  his  "closing  remarks,"  Mr.  McGuire,  misquotes 
me.  Mr.  McGuire  says:  "but,  to  quote  Mr.  Moore's  words,  're 
lying  on  proofs,  historical,  technological  and  of  association  '  *  *  *." 

My  words  were,  as  may  be  seen  on  page  42  in  these  papers, 
"  relying  on  proofs — historical,  technological,  chemical  and  of  asso 
ciation." 

Mr.  McGuire  suppresses  the  word  "chemical."  While  Mr. 
McGuire  may  not  wish  to  take  up  the  chemical  issue  with  me,  it 
seems  hardly  fair  to  eliminate  the  word  from  a  quotation  taken 
from  me. 

As  the  reader  is  aware,  Theodore  De  Bry  published  a  great 
number  of  "Voyages,"  divided  into  "Greater"  and  "  I^esser." 
Sabin's  criticism  is  a  general  statement  and  is,  no  doubt,  exact  in 
regard  to  the  plates  of  most  of  these  works.  In  the  case  of  Part  II 
of  the  ' '  Voyages, ' '  which  describes  a  Huguenot  expedition  to  the 
St.  John's  river,  Florida,  the  illustrations  were  furnished  by  I^e 
Moyne,  an  artist  and  an  eye-witness,  and  presumably  the  plates  are 
much  more  reliable  than  those  in  other  publications  by  De  Bry. 
The  reader  will  kindly  bear  this  in  mind  and  not  reject  as  valueless 
the  plates  from  De  Bry,  reproduced  in  my  paper,  and  the  drawing 
"  after  DeBry  "  given  by  Mr.  McGuire  in  his  memoir  on  pipes. 

It  is  sure  that  the  drawings  made  by  Le  Moyne  must  have  been 
accurate  in  many  respects,  especially  as  to  the  ornaments  worn  by 
the  aborigines,  for  how  otherwise  could  his  drawings  coincide  so 
exactly  with  the  copper  plates  found  by  me  in  the  mounds  where 
the  aborigines  used  to  live  ? 

Mr.  McGuire  says  :  "I  would  call  attention  to  plate  42,  one  of 
the  series  in  this  same  volume,  which  represents  an  Indian  standing 
over  a  French  prisoner  [?]  in  the  act  of  killing  him  with  an  axe,  the 
axe  having  an  eye  to  it  and  a  helve  in  the  eye.  Therefore,  to  follow 
Mr.  Moore's  line  of  argument,  we  should  believe  that  the  natives 
possessed  such  axes  prior  to  the  arrival  of  the  whites,  although 
we  have  L,audonniere's  assertion  that  he  compensated  the  natives 
who  sent  him  presents,  with  axes,  knives,  glass  beads,  and  mirrors." 


iv  Mr.  Moore's  Reply  to 

I  think  Mr.  McGuire  is  in  error  in  attributing  to  me  the  line  of 
argument  that  he  does.  I  do  not  assert  that  everything  shown  in 
L,e  Moyne's  plates  was  worn  or  carried  by  the  aborigines.  Europ 
eans,  sailing  vessels,  wheel-lock  guns,  steel  swords,  helved  axes,  are 
shown  in  these  plates,  but  I  do  not  maintain  that  all  these  things 
were  of  aboriginal  origin.  Plate  XLJI,  cited  by  Mr.  McGuire,  shows 
a  French  soldier  (not  a  prisoner,  by  the  way),  who  has  gone  in  a 
dug-out  with  two  Indians,  on  a  journey,  carrying  his  effects  with 
him.  The  axe  seized  by  the  savage  to  slay  him  with  belonged,  of 
course,  to  the  Frenchman.  Nowhere  in  the  plates  are  the  abo 
rigines  showrn  possessed  of  these  axes ;  on  the  other  hand,  in  Plate 
IX,  a  Frenchman  is  using  this  kind  of  axe  to  chop  down  a  tree. 

European  axes  are  found  with  intrusive  burials  in  the  mounds, 
but  never  have  I  come  across  them  at  any  depth  from  the  surface. 

It  is  well  known  that  while  the  expeditions  of  Narvaez  and  of  De 
Soto  were  unsuccessful  in  their  quest  for  the  precious  metals,  plates 
of  gold  and  of  silver  were  seen  on  the  aborigines  along  the  St.  Johns 
river  by  the  French  who  came  in  1562-4,  about  a  score  of  years  later 
than  De  Soto.  Now,  the  presence  of  these  metals,  probably  obtained 
from  the  wrecks  of  vessels,  might  prove  confusing  to  some  when  con 
sidering  the  origin  of  the  ornaments  of  metal  which  the  testimony  of 
the  mounds  and  the  pictures  of  Le  Moyne  show  to  have  been  worn 
by  the  aborigines  along  the  St.  Johns.  It  would  be  a  mistake  to  at 
tribute  the  provenance  of  the  silver  and  gold  and  that  of  the  copper 
to  a  common  source. 

While,  doubtless,  the  Huguenots  saw  a  limited  amount  of  gold 
and  of  silver  on  the  savages,  the  amount  reported  was  undoubtedly 
* '  an  exaggeration  of  the  facts,  common  to  the  European  mind  in  that 
age. ' '  Probably  everything  that  glittered  was  gold  to  the  French 
men.  Masses  of  lead  sulphide,  at  the  present  time  so  frequently 
found  in  the  mounds,  were  doubtless  sometimes  taken  for  silver,  and 
burnished  copper  for  gold,  as  occurred  in  the  case  amusingly  told  by 
Bernal  Diaz  of  the  six  hundred  polished  copper  axes  bartered  for  by 
the  Spaniards  in  the  mistaken  notion  that  they  were  of  gold. 

If  the  precious  metals  ever  became  abundant  among  the 
aborigines  in  Florida,  it  is  hard  to  account  for  their  comparative 
absence  from  post- Columbian  mounds  and  superficial  burials  in 
that  State,  since  iron,  glass,  lead,  brass,  etc.,  are  met  with  in  them 
in  plenty. 

Among  the  many  scores  of  mounds  I  have  dug  down  in  Florida, 


Mr.  Me  Quire's  Closing  Remarks.  v 

I  have  met  with  gold  but  once,1  and  that  superficially.  Silver  I 
have  encountered  several  times,  always  in  low  mounds  or  near  the 
surface  of  larger  ones.  I  exclude  from  this  category,  however,  sheet- 
copper  coated  with  silver,  which  I  have  found  under  circumstances, 
in  my  opinion,  showing  it  to  be  of  pre-Columbian  deposit. 

To  my  first  investigation  of  the  Grant  Mound,  I  devoted  six  days 
with  sixteen  men  to  dig.  The  next  season  I  demolished  the  mound 
with  forty-three  men  digging  thirty  days. 

To  my  two  investigations  of  Mt.  Royal,  I  gave  thirty-nine  days 
with  an  average  of  twenty-six  men. 

In  neither  of  these  mounds,  which  were  at,  or  near,  the  homes 
of  Saturioua  and  Outina,  respectively,  was  gold  or  silver  met  with  by 
me,  or,  as  I  have  before  stated,  was  any  object  surely  of  European 
origin,  found. 

It  would  seem  likely,  then,  that  most  of  the  metal  ornaments  seen 
on  the  savages  by  the  French  were  of  copper.  If  such  ornaments  of 
silver  and  of  gold  as  were  seen  got  into  the  mounds  situate  at  the 
places  where  the  chiefs  lived,  it  was  probably  about  the  period  of 
discontinuance  of  these  monnds  as  burial  places  and  the  ornaments, 
buried  superficially,  were  ploughed  away,  in  the  case  of  the  Mt. 
Royal  Mound,  at  least,  which  had  been  under  cultivation  before  we 
dug  it ;  or,  likely  enough,  the  mounds  in  question  were  no  longer 
in  use  wrhen  the  Frenchmen  came. 

At  all  events,  the  ornaments  figured  by  Le  Moyne,  of  whatever 
metal  or  metals  they  may  have  been,  were  of  the  same  type  as  the 
copper  ones  found  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  mounds  situate 
where  the  chiefs  described  by  the  Frenchmen  were,  and  must  have 
been  patterned  after  these  ornaments  of  copper,  and  these  ornaments 
of  copper  were  pre-Columbian,  for  it  is  surely  inconceivable  that 
ornaments  of  this  type  could  have  had  time  to  spread  over  the  Penin 
sula  and,  after  that  again,  mounds  of  the  kind  I  have  described  could 
have  been  built  from  the  base  up,  all  within  the  thirty  odd  years 
that  intervened  between  the  landing  of  Narvaez  and  the  coming  of 
the  French.  Besides,  these  ornaments  are  of  native  copper,  which 
the  Europeans  did  not  have,  and  no  object  of  European  provenance 
was  found  with  them. 

Mr.  McGuire  says  :   "  having  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  abo- 

1  In  this  connection  the  reader  is  referred  to  a  paper  by  my  good  friend,  the 
late  Andrew  E.  Douglass,  "Description  of  a  Gold  Ornament  from  Florida." 
American  Antiquarian,  January,  1890. 


vi  Mr.  Moore* s  Reply  to 

riginal  American  pipes,  or  perhaps  I  should  say,  primitive  pipes, 
there  can  surely  be  no  objection  to  my  drawing  deductions  from 
personal  experience,  especially  where  it  is  confined  strictly  to  a  line 
along  which  I  am  supposed  to  be  able  to  form  them  intelligently." 

No  one  can  object  to  an  intelligent  deduction.  The  point  criti 
cised  wras  that  Mr.  McGuire,  in  his  memoir  on  pipes,  quoted  the 
presence  of  copper  with  pipes  as  a  proof  of  their  modern  origin,  and 
then,  in  his  reply  to  my  paper,  cited  the  presence  of  pipes  in  a 
mound  with  copper  to  show  that  the  copper  was  European.  This 
is  circular  ratiocination. 

Mr.  McGuire' s  opinions  as  to  pipes  are  shared  by  few,  if  any. 
There  are  those  who  think  that  as  Mr.  McGuire,  by  his  own  show 
ing,  failed  so  utterly  in  his  experiments  with  copper,  he  may  not 
have  been  more  successful  in  his  efforts  as  to  pipes. 

As  to  what  Mr.  McGuire  says  in  reference  to  mound  pipes,  that 
there  are  on  some  of  them  flat  surfaces,  or  facets,  and  that  on  these 
facets  appear  series  of  straight  lines  parallel  and  equidistant,  and 
that  he  can  imitate  these  lines  with  a  file  only,  and  cannot  reproduce 
them  with  any  stone  tool,  it  can  only  be  said  that  while  Mr.  McGuire 
has,  for  a  considerable  period,  looked  into  such  matters,  he  may, 
nevertheless,  be  mistaken.  There  may  be  archaeologists  who  accept 
Mr.  McGuire  conclusions,  but  a  careful  search  has  failed  to  locate 
them.  Mr.  McGuire' s  statement  as  to  pipes  may  have  passed  unchal 
lenged  in  print  for  a  time  for  the  same  reason  that  his  statements 
that  copper,  that  a  tool  of  copper,  that  sheet-copper,  showed  Euro 
pean  influence,  remained  unnoticed  for  a  period,  because  no  one  had 
the  time  or  energy  to  take  the  matter  up,  or  because  some  did  not 
take  the  matter  seriously  in  view  of  the  overwhelming  proofs  of 
association  connected  with  mound  pipes  and  of  association  and 
analysis  connected  with  copper. 

After  a  period,  Mr.  Fowke,1  a  man  of  wide  field  experience, 
which  counts  for  so  much,  and  of  museum  experience,  too,  went  on 
record  as  follows:  ("Archaeological  History  of  Ohio,"  pg.  588) 
"Unless  it  bears  at  the  same  time  other  indications  of  modern  work, 
there  are  no  scratches  at  all  resembling  the  mark  of  a  file  on  any  so- 
called  Indian  relic  in  the  [National]  Museum,  which  may  not  be  pro 
duced  with  a  piece  of  hard,  gritty  sand-stone.  Besides,  exactly 
similar  marks  occur  in  parts  of  the  specimen  which  cannot  be  reached 
with  either  the  round  or  the  flat  face  of  a  file. ' ' 


1  Mr.  Gerard  Fowke,  the  author  of  "Stone  Art,"  Thirteenth  Annual  Re 
port,  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Washington,  D.  C. 


Mr.  McGuire*s  Closing  Remarks.  vii 

Mr.  McGuire  says:  "Mr.  Moore's  .assertion  that  the  copper 
which  I  suggest  was  acquired  by  the  Indians  through  trade  and  by 
shipwreck  was  sheet-brass  as  he  can  assert  '  from  personal  experi 
ence,  often  repeated,'  brings  into  the  controversy  the  assertions  of 
Hariot,  Smith  and  others  that  the  Indians  so  traded,  and  further, 
examples  of  copper  kettles  in  the  National  Museum,  of  European 
make,  worked  into  ornaments,  are  too  numerous  to  admit  of  doubt 
as  to  their  existence." 

Mr.  McGuire,  in  quoting  me,  leaves  out  the  word  "  much."  I 
said,  "  I  can  only  repeat  that  much  of  what  has  been  called  sheet- 
copper,  found  with  late  burials,  is,  in  reality,  sheet-brass,  and  as 
to  this  I  can  speak  from  personal  experience  often  repeated."  *  *  * 
I  again  assert  this.  I  believe  that  some  early  writers  wrote  loosely 
when  speaking  of  copper  and  failed  to  distinguish  between  copper 
and  brass,  just  as  certain  writers  at  the  present  time,  including  Mr. 
McGuire  and  Doctor  Thomas,  fail  to  distinguish  between  copper  and 
brass,  and  call  Indian  kettles  "  copper  kettles,"  while  in  fact,  prac 
tically  all  of  them  are  of  brass.  In  some  foreign  tongues  little  dis 
tinction  is  made  between  copper  and  brass.  The  Italian  rame  means 
either.  In  some  French  dictionaries  the  word  cuivre  is  given  as  the 
equivalent  of  copper  or  of  brass.  Translations  of  early  chronicles 
may  be  at  fault  at  times.  Some  early  writers,  however,  distinguish 
between  copper  and  brass,  including  Underbill,  to  whom  reference 
will  be  made  later. 

Wood,  in  his  "New  England  Prospect,"  published  in  1634, 
states  that  the  Indians  obtained  brass  from  the  English  for  their 
ornaments  and  arrowheads. 

I  have  found  sheet-brass  in  the  mounds,  with  intrusive  burials, 
ten  times  as  often  as  I  have  found  European  sheet-copper.  Brass 
is  cheaper  than  copper,  and  it  is  only  natural  to  suppose  that  those 
providing  themselves  with  material  for  gift  or  for  barter  would,  as  a 
rule,  select  the  less  expensive. 

Mr.  Willoughby,  writing  from  the  Peabody  Museum,  Cam 
bridge  Mass.,  says,  "by  far  the  greater  number  of  metal  objects 
from  the  New  England  graves  are  of  brass. ' ' 

Mr.  David  Boyle  says,  "Similarly,  we  have  in  our  collection 
[Provincial  Museum,  Toronto]  small  beads  which  wrere  called  in  a 
familiar  way  '  copper '  beads,  but  which  are  really  made  from  small 
strips  of  the  disused  brass  kettles." 

But  why  multiply  authorities  ?     It  is  evident  that  my  conten- 


viii  Mr.  Moore's  Reply  to 

tion  is  established — that  much  of  the  so-called  .sheet-copper  is  brass. 
Mr.  McGuire,  himself,  as  we  shall  see  later,  confounds  sheet-brass 
with  sheet-copper.  Now,  whoever  saw  embossed  or  engraved  work 
on  brass  similar  to  that  found  on  copper  in  the  larger  mounds  ? 

Mr.  McGuire  joins  issue  with  me  as  to  whether  the  so-called 
copper  kettles  are  of  copper  or  of  brass.  Let  us  settle  that  matter, 
right  here. 

Ten  years  ago,  when  I  caused  a  great  number  of  analyses  of 
copper  to  be  made,  I  vainly  sought  for  a  copper  kettle  found  with 
an  aboriginal  burial. 

The  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia  has  but  one 
Indian  kettle.  It  is  brass. 

Mr.  David  Boyle,  Superintendent  of  the  Provincial  Musuem, 
Toronto,  Ontario,  than  whom  no  greater  authority  exists  on  these 
matters,  writes:  "There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all  that  most,  if  not 
all  of  these  pots,  are  brass.  Any  difference  I  can  see  is  merely  one 
of  degree  in  brassiness. ' ' 

William  M.  Beauchamp,  S.T.D.,  whose  work  is  too  well  known 
to  call  for  reference  here,  has  written  an  exhaustive  memoir  entitled 
"Metallic  Implements  of  the  New  York  Indians."1  One  of  the 
parts  into  which  the  book  is  divided  has  for  title,  "  Brass  Kettles." 
We  read  how  La  Salle  wanted  2000  pounds  of  brass  kettles  at  Fort 
Frontenac. 

All  the  kettles  figured  in  this  memoir  are  of  brass.  Copper 
kettles  are  not  even  mentioned  in  the  index,  though  allusions  to 
kettles  of  brass  are  abundant. 

Mr.  C.  C.  Willoughby  writes  that,  excluding  stored  collections, 
as  to  which  he  does  not  wish  to  make  positive  statements,  there  are 
in  the  Peabody  Museum  four  Indian  kettles,  one  from  Michigan, 
one  from  New  York,  two  from  Rhode  Island.  All  are  of  brass.  Mr. 
Willoughby  cites  Underhill's  narrative  of  the  Pequot  War  wherein 
it  is  told  how  the  Indians  broke  up  their  brass  kettles  ' '  to  make 
their  arrow-points." 

A  careful  examination  has  shown  that  there  is  but  one  copper 
kettle  in  the  National  Museum  ;  the  rest  are  brass,  though  Dr. 
Cyrus  Thomas  in  his  ' '  Report  on  Mound  Explorations, ' '  Twelfth 
Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  speaks  only  of  copper 
kettles  being  there. 

1  New  York  State  Museum,  Bulletin  55,  Archaeology,  7,  published  by  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New  York. 


Mr.  McGuire*s  Closing  Remarks.  ix 

As  to  the  "  examples  of  copper  kettles  in  the  National  Museum 
of  European  make,  worked  into  ornaments,"  as  to  the  number  of 
which  Mr.  McGuire  speaks,  it  can  only  be  said  that  a  careful  search 
made  in  the  National  Museum,  where  every  facility  was  offered  by 
the  authorities  of  the  Museum,  and  an  official  of  the  Museum  was 
present,  failed  to  show  any  of  the  ornaments  of  which  Mr.  McGuire 
speaks,  though  beads  of  sheet-brass  and  cones  of  sheet-brass  are 
there.  Such  copper  ornaments  as  were  seen  gave  no  evidence  what 
ever  of  having  been  made  from  kettles.  This  assertion  of  Mr.  McGuire 
is  simply  a  mere  statement  made  by  him.  Presumably,  Mr. 
McGuire  has  taken  for  sheet-copper  the  sheet-brass  ornaments 
in  the  Museum,  and  thus  himself  affords  a  proof  of  my  contention. 

Finally,  as  a  proof  of  sincerity  on  my  part,  I  now  make  this 
offer  to  Mr.  McGuire.  I  will  allow  Mr.  McGuire  to  name  a  com 
mittee  of  three  experts  who  shall  take  testimony  as  to  whether  the 
vast  majority  of  Indian  kettles  are  not  of  brass,  the  loser  in  the  de 
cision  to  make  a  printed  acknowledgment  that  he  has  been  arguing 
about  a  subject  of  which  he  knew  nothing. 

Mr.  McGuire  speaks  of  numbers  of  objects  found  in  the  mounds, 
which  objects  I  admit  are  undoubtedly  of  European  origin,  such  as 
glass,  medals,  crucifixes,  etc.,  etc.  During  my  investigations,  I 
have  found  superficially  or  in  smaller  mounds  many  scores  of  objects 
of  European  provenance — even  combs.  Until  quite  recently  mound 
investigation  has  not  been  carried  on  so  carefully  as  it  should  have 
been,  and  the  fact  was  not  recognized  that  it  was  just  as  important 
to  state  in  records  of  mound  work  exactly  wrhat  part  of  the  mound 
the  object  came  from  as  it  was  to  describe  the  object  itself.  Too 
frequently  all  objects  met  with  in  a  mound  have  been  boxed  together 
and  labelled  simply  as  coming  from  a  mound  in  such  or  such  a 
locality,  and  frequently,  unfortunately,  erroneous  deductions  have 
been  drawn  therefrom  by  "  desk-workers." 

Inexperienced  mound  workers,  also,  may  report  most  curious 
associations  of  objects,  for  it  is  not  for  every  one  to  distinguish  the 
intrusive  burial  or  the  pit  dug  and  filled  in  by  recent  explorers,  or 
by  seekers  after  treasure.  These  remarks  apply  to  shell-heaps 
equally  as  well  as  to  mounds.  Of  course,  the  existence  of  some 
post-Columbian  mounds  and  shell-heaps  is  admitted,  but  one  swal 
low  does  not  make  a  Spring,  nor  can  one  auk  make  post-Columbian 
a  whole  series  of  mounds  and  shell-heaps. 

In  my  answer  to  Mr.  McGuire  I  requested  him  to  give  the 


x  Mr.  Maoris  Reply  to 

names  of  such  American  archaeologists  as  shared  his  belief  as  to 
aboriginal  copper.  My  paper,  read  at  Washington,  had  for  title, 
' '  Sheet-copper  from  the  Mounds  is  not  necessarily  of  European 
Origin."  Mr.  McGuire  took  the  opposite  side  ;  that  is,  that  sheet- 
copper  from  the  mounds  is  necessarily  of  European  origin,  and  he 
has  gone  on  record  as  to  sheet-copper  and  even  copper  in  general.1 
Therefore,  those  who  share  Mr.  McGuire' s  opinion  believe  sheet- 
copper  to  be,  of  necessity,  of  European  origin. 

Mr.  McGuire  has  named  Doctor  Cyrus  Thomas,  as  an  endorser  of 
his  views,  and  says  :  "I  submit  that  Dr.  Thomas'  name  will  satisfy 
Mr.  Moore's  request  and  be  an  answer  upon  which  both  American 
and  European  archaeologists  may  ponder. ' ' 

They  surely  will,  for  Dr.  Cyrus  Thomas,  whom  Mr.  McGuire 
cites,  says,  page  711  of  the  "Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethno 
logy,  1 890-91 , "  ' '  as  a  matter  of  course  no  one  denies  that  the  mound- 
builders  made  implements  and  ornaments  of  native  copper  and  fre 
quently  hammered  this  copper  into  thin  sheets  with  the  rude  imple 
ments  of  which  they  were  possessed." 

Though  these  words  immediately  precede  the  quotation  from  Dr. 
Thomas  given  by  Mr.  McGuire,  yet  Mr.  McGuire  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  include  them. 

I  marvel  greatly  that  Mr.  McGuire  has  not  named  the  others 
whom  he  says  share  his  belief  as  to  copper.  Mr.  McGuire  explains 
that  he  does  not  wish  to  involve  them  in  a  controversy.  The  present 
discussion  as  to  copper,  carried  on  with  the  best  feeling  on  both  sides, 
must  inure  to  the  benefit  of  science,  and  those  who  fear,  or  are 
ashamed,  to  assert  their  views  in  the  matter  must  be  faint-hearted 
supporters  indeed.  Gladly  will  I  publish,  at  Mr.  McGuire' s  request, 
a  list  of  those  archaeologists  who  do  not  share  his  opinions  as  to  copper. 
These  gentlemen  are  in  no  wise  timid  as  to  putting  their  viewrs  on 
record. 

It  is  true  Doctor  Thomas  does  not  believe  in  the  aboriginal 
origin  of  the  Etowah  plates,  because  he  thinks  he  has  distinguished 
on  them  marks  of  European  tools,  which,  parenthetically  I  may  say, 
others,  including  many  of  his  co-workers  in  the  Bureau,  have  failed 

1  "The  contemporaneity  of  metal  in  the  mounds,  especially  copper"  *  *  *. 
McGuire  [to  show  a  modern  origin  for  certain  pipes], 

"  Objects  of  undeniably  European  manufacture  such  as  an  implement  of 
copper"  *  *  *.  McGuire. 

"The  sheet  copper,"  *  *  *  [to  prove  European  provenance].     McGuire. 


Mr.  McGuire's   Closing  Remarks.  xi 

to  see,  and  in  his  memoir,  to  which  I  have  already  made  reference, 
in  speaking  of  thin  and  evenly  made  .sheets  of  copper,  says  (p.  711): 
"A  careful  chemical  and  microscopical  examination  of  the  various 
specimens  might  possibly  settle  the  point  ;  however,  as  this  has  not 
been  done,  we  must,  for  the  present,  rely  upon  inspection." 

When  my  investigation  of  mound  copper,  viewed  from  a  chemical 
standpoint,  with  very  many  analyses,  appeared,  after  this  suggestion 
from  Doctor  Thomas,  in  the  second  part  of  my  ' '  Certain  Sand  Mounds 
of  the  St.  Johns  river,  Florida,"  (The  Journal  of  the  Academy  of 
Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia),  I  sent  a  copy  to  Doctor  Thomas, 
with  whom  I  had  had  considerable  pleasant  correspondence  before. 

Doctor  Thomas  replied  in  a  very  kind  way  as  to  ni}^  book,  but 
stated  he  did  not  feel  competent  to  judge  of  the  chemical  evidence 
presented. 

Under  date  of  January  u,  1895,  I  wrrote  Doctor  Thomas,  offer 
ing  to  have  made  any  tests  he  would  suggest.  I  suggested  that  the 
chemists  of  the  Geological  Survey  might  take  the  matter  up  and 
closed  my  letter  with,  "  I  am  also  willing  to  appoint  a  representative, 
an  expert  on  the  analysis  of  copper,  to  conduct  an  analysis  with  a 
representative  of  the  Survey,  and  each  side  may  see  the  others  method 
of  work  and  upon  what  tests  his  conclusions  are  based.  We  are  all 
anxious  to  get  at  the  truth,  and  the  sooner  we  can  do  so  the  better." 

I  received  no  reply  to  this  letter,  although  Doctor  Thomas  had 
been  the  first  to  suggest  a  chemical  investigation. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Doctor  Thomas  had  twice  gone  on  re 
cord  in  print1  as  to  his  belief  that  the  Etowah  plates  showed  European 
influence,  nevertheless,  one  would  expect  him,  after  the  suggestion 
made  by  him,  to  accept  my  offer,  if  his  want  of  knowledge  of  chemistry 
did  not  permit  him  to  judge  of  the  work  that  had  already  been  done. 

Incidentally,  it  may  be  said  that  Dr.  Roland  Steiner,  the  \vell- 
known  archaeologist,  who  conducted  the  investigation  of  the  Etowah 
mounds,  disbelieves  in  the  theory  of  a  European  origin  for  the  copper 
found  there.  In  the  smaller  of  the  two  large  mounds  at  Etowah,  Dr. 
Steiner  found  an  axe  made  of  three  pieces  of  copper  beaten  together. 
This  axe  is  now  in  the  National  Museum  as  is  also  an  implement 
with  a  square  point,  found  in  the  mound  by  Dr.  Steiner,  which  he 
believes  was  the  very  tool  with  which  the  repousse  work  on  the 
copper  plates  may  have  been  done. 

1  "  Twelfth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,"  and  "  The  Story 
of  a  Mound." 


xii  Mr.  Moore*s  Reply  to 

It  is  also  interesting  to  know  that  sheet-copper  "from  Grave  A, 
Little  Etowah  mound,  Georgia,"  furnished  me  by  the  late  Thomas 
Wilson,  Esq.,  while  connected  with  the  National  Museum,  proved, 
upon  analysis,1  to  be  pure  native  copper. 

Prof.  W.  H.  Holmes  recently  furnished  five  specimens  of  copper 
from  the  United  States  National  Museum  for  analysis  by  Prof.  Harry 
F.  Keller,  Ph.D. 

One  of  these,  marked  "  No.  170,803,  Fragment  of  thin  sheet- 
copper,  showing  repousse  work.  Mound  C,  Etowah  Group,  Barton 
Co.,  Ga.,"  gave  as  metallic  impurities  silver  and  iron  only,  which 
impurities  are  to  be  looked  for  in  all  native  copper. 

Incidentally,  the  results  of  the  other  analyses  are  given  here. 

"No.  83,445,  Fragment  of  spool-shaped  ornament,  Gunthers- 
ville,  Marshall  Co.,  Ala.,"  showed  silver  and  iron  as  metallic  im 
purities  and  "  a  faint  trace  of  arsenic." 

Here  again  we  have  native  copper. 

The  other  three  specimens  of  copper  were  sent  as  being  un 
doubtedly  of  European  provenance. 

"No.  59,609,  Fragments  of  cylindrical  copper  beads,  Indian 
grave,  Eastport,  Me."  The  impurities  were  silver,  lead,  antimony, 
arsenic,  iron,  nickel. 

"  No.  22,060,  Piece  of  copper,  Casco  Bay,  Me.,"  yielded  as  im 
purities  silver,  lead,  antimon}r,  arsenic,  bismuth,  iron,  nickel. 

"No.  13,519,  Fragment  of  sheet-copper,  Indian  Grave,  Harps- 
well,  Me."  Metallic  impurities  were  as  follows  :  silver,  lead,  anti 
mony,  arsenic,  bismuth,  iron,  nickel. 

The  percentages  of  lead,  antimony  and  arsenic  present  in  the 
three  specimens  of  copper  of  European  provenance  were  strikingly 
heavy. 

There  is  another  matter  of  which  I  wish  to  speak. 

Since  preparing  my  paper  for  the  "Anthropologist,"  I  have 
spent  over  three  months  in  Florida,  constantly  engaged  in  mound 
work. 

I  met  with  metal  in  but  two  mounds,  excluding  one  small  bit 
of  copper. 

In  a  large  mound  near  the  great  shell-heap  on  the  Crystal  river, 
Citrus  county,  I  found  human  remains  in  226  places,  and  these 
burials  represented  a  far  larger  number  of  skeletons  than  the  figures 

1  Given  in  my  Part  II,  "Certain  Sand  Mounds  of  the  St.  Johns  River, 
Florida." 


Mr.  McGuire>s  Closing  Remarks.  xiii 

given,  as  bones  sometimes  lay  in  masses.  There  were  also  great 
numbers  of  objects  including  earthenware  vessels,  tobacco  pipes, 
pendants  of  stone  and  of  shell,  shell  cups,  etc.,  hundreds  in  all. 
Among  the  pendants  were  twelve  hammered  out  of  native  copper, 
all  patterned  after  pendants  of  stone  or  of  shell,  present  in  the 
mound.  There  were  also  in  the  mound  several  ornaments  of  sheet- 
copper  and  three  pairs  of  embossed  ear-plugs  of  sheet-copper,  some 
overlaid  with  sheet-silver.  In  the  entire  mound  was  no  object  dis 
tinctly  of  European  make. 

A  fragment  of  a  fluted  ornament  of  sheet-copper  from  the  Crys 
tal  river  mound  was  submitted  to  Dr.  Harry  F.  Keller,  Ph.D.,  for 
analysis.  Doctor  Keller  reported  the  ornament  to  be  ' '  certainly 
made  from  the  native  metal  :  a  very  searching  qualitative  analysis 
of  the  cleaned  specimen  gave  only  silver  and  iron  as  metallic  impuri 
ties  and  demonstrated  the  entire  absence  of  lead,  arsenic,  antimony 
and  zinc." 

The  other  mound  in  which  objects  of  metal  were  present  was 
near  the  Chipola  river,  a  tributary  of  the  Apalachicola  river,  in 
northwest  Florida. 

In  this  mound,  which  was  about  5  feet  high,  glass  was  present, 
even  coming  from  a  grave  below  the  base,  so  that  the  mound  was 
distinctly  post- Columbian.  In  the  grave  referred  to  were  two  metal 
discs,  one  with  two  perforations  for  suspension,  the  other  with  a 
single  one.  There  was  in  the  mound,  in  addition,  another  disc  and 
fragments  of  a  fourth.  These  discs,  tested  by  Professor  Keller, 
proved  to  be  brass.  The  discs  bore  no  ornamentation,  being  simply 
circular  sheets  of  metal. 

It  would  hardly  be  possible  better  to  illustrate  my  contention 
as  to  copper  and  as  to  the  association  of  objects  in  the  mounds  than 
has  been  done  by  the  results  afforded  by  the  investigation  of  these 
two  mounds,  which  will  be  fully  described  in  a  memoir  to  be  pub 
lished  by  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia,  at  which 
institution  is  all  the  copper  discovered  by  me  in  the  southern  United 
States. 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  this  question  as  to  aboriginal  copper  is  about 
as  follows  : 

i .  As  to  the  results  of  chemical  analysis,  seemingly  so  conclu 
sive,  Mr.  McGuire  has  nothing  to  say.  The  reader  will  kindly  bear 
in  mind,  however,  that  ignorance  as  to  chemical  tests  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  McGuire  does  not  eliminate  chemistry  from  the  discussion  ;  the 


xiv  Mr.  Maoris  Reply  to 

only  factor  Mr.  McGuire's  want  of  knowledge  as  to  this  subject  can 
eliminate  is  Mr.  McGuire  himself. 

2.  That  Mr.  McGuire  ignores  these  most  valuable  proofs  of 
association  ;  that  is,  that  sheet-copper  and  sheet-copper  embossed 
are  found  in  very  many  mounds  which  contain  no  objects  distinctly 
of  European  provenance. 

3.  That  Mr.  McGuire  places  his  sole  reliance,  outside  his  per 
sonal  opinion,  on  the  allegation  that  certain  early  chroniclers  fail  to 
mention  embossed  sheet-copper.     We  have  the  testimony  of  De  Bry 
that  such  copper  must  have  existed  among  the  early  aborigines.    Mr. 
McGuire,  however,  attempts  to  discredit  DeBry,  whose  testimony 
Mr.  McGuire  was  ready  enough  to  make  use  of  in  his  own  publi 
cation.    As  to  Hariot,  Smith  and  others,  in  whose  writings  reference 
is  not  made  to  embossed  sheet-copper,  it  can  be  said  that  these  men 
were  probably  not  cultivated  to  a  point  to  attach  importance  to 
whether  shining  plates  of  copper  were  embossed  or  not,  and  hence 
did  not  refer  to  embossed  work.     Moreover,  this  testimony  of  omis 
sion  is  negative  testimony.     Should  Mr.  McGuire  remind  us  that 
the  non- disco  very  in  many  mounds  of  objects  surely  of  European 
provenance,  also  is  negative  testimony,  the  answer  would  be  that  it  is 
negative  testimony  of  a  very  different  sort.      It  is  not  admitted  that 
early  writers,  rough-and-ready-men,  went  into  each  and  every  detail 
of  aboriginal  decoration  in  copper.      On  the  other  hand,  it  is  admit 
ted  that  the  aborigines  buried  with  their  dead  the  belongings  of  the 
deceased.     Mounds  containing  no  objects  of  European  provenance 
and  post- Columbian  mounds  and  graves  which  contain  impure  cop 
per,  brass,  iron,  glass,  lead,  etc.,  prove  this  by  positive  testimony. 
Therefore,  where,  in  great  numbers  of  mounds  in  whole  districts  of 
country  110  objects  surely  of  European  provenance  are  found,  the 
fact  that  such  objects  were  not  possessed  by  the  makers  of  these 
mounds  is  generally  admitted  to  be  almost  conclusive. 

Under  any  circumstances,  the  best  negative  testimony,  which 
Mr.  McGuire's  is  not,  is  a  poor  weapon  with  which  to  combat  posi 
tive  testimony.  Mr.  McGuire's  inferior  negative  testimony  is  op 
posed  by  far  stronger  negative  testimony  from  the  mounds,  and  this 
negative  testimony  from  the  mounds  is,  in  addition,  clinched  by  the 
results  of  chemical  analysis,  which  is  positive  testimony,  indeed. 

4.  That  Mr.  McGuire  abandons  his  former  contention  as  to 
copper  in  general,  and  even  as  to  sheet-copper,  which  now  is  only 
"suggestive"  of  European  provenance,  and  makes  a  final  stand 


Mr.  Me  Glare's  Closing  Remarks.  xv 

that  evenly  made  ornaments  of  sheet-copper,  embossed,  certainly 
show  white  influence. 

It  comes  down  then,  practically,  to  a  question  of  Mr.  McGuire's 
personal  opinion. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  the  opinion  of  any  one,  it  is  well  to 
consider  the  means  by  which  this  opinion  was  reached.  Was  it 
attained  through  experiment?  If  so,  is  the  record  of  the  experi 
menter  such  as  to  inspire  confidence  in  his  judgment  ?  Mr.  McGuire 
himself,  in  these  papers,  has  told  us  how  signally  he  failed  in  his 
attempts  to  hammer  out  native  copper.  This  failure,  in  connection 
with  Mr.  Willoughby's  experience,  is  not  of  a  character  to  inspire 
us  with  confidence  in  Mr.  McGuire. 

We  should  consider  also  the  mental  bent  of  the  person  whose 
opinion  is  advanced.  Has  he  shown  in  the  past  a  tendency  to  bring 
forward  startling  and  untenable  theories  ?  If  so,  he  is  likely  to  do 
so  again.  Mr.  McGuire's  belief  in  the  European  origin  of  tobacco- 
pipes  is  well  known.  In  addition,  he  is  the  author  of  "On  the 
Evolution  of  the  Art  of  Working  in  Stone,"  x  in  which  it  is  con 
tended  that  implements  of  polished  stone  came  into  use  before  imple- 
ments  of  chipped  stone  were  used.  This  theory  created  a  sensation, 
but  it  is  unsupported  by  facts.  Are  not  Mr.  McGuire's  theories  of 
copper  on  a  like  basis  ? 

To  put  matters  to  a  test,  and  as  a  proof  of  sincerity  on  my  part, 
I  will  make  this  offer  to  Mr.  McGuire  : 

Mr.  McGuire  may  name  two  well-known  experts  in  chemistry, 
and  I  will  name  one.  These  gentlemen  may  make  extended  analy 
ses  of  early  European  copper,  of  native  copper,  and  of  sheet-copper 
ornaments  found  other  than  superficially  in  mounds  in  which  no 
objects  of  distinctly  European  provenance  have  been  met  with. 

If  it  is  decided  by  this  board  that  embossed  copper  from  the 
mounds  is  not  native  copper  and  is  copper  the  result  of  early  smelt 
ing  processes  in  Europe,  I  have  lost,  and  the  expenses  of  the  com 
mission  will  be  borne  by  those  who  believe  in  the  aboriginal  origin  of 
such  mound  copper. 

But  as  Mr.  McGuire  and  Doctor  Thomas  have  allowed  to  go 
unnoticed  all  offers  as  to  chemical  tests  of  copper,  made  by  me  to 
them  in  the  past,  I  will  go  still  farther.  I  will  agree  to  any  reason 
able  set  of  chemical  experiments  suggested  by  Mr.  McGuire  or  by 
Doctor  Thomas,  who,  I  suppose,  might  be  called  Mr.  McGuire's 
1  "American  Anthropologist,"  Vol.  VI,  July,  1893,  p.  307,  et  seq. 


xvi     Mr.  Moore's  Reply  to  Mr.  McGuire^s  Closing  Remarks. 

semi-endorser.  The  want  of  chemical  knowledge  on  the  part  of 
these  gentlemen  may  not  serve  them  as  an  excuse  for  the  non-accept 
ance  of  my  offer.  There  are  in  Washington,  chemists  who,  though 
not,  of  necessity,  endorsing  the  views  of  Mr.  McGuire  and  Doctor 
Thomas  as  to  copper,  know  these  gentlemen  and  think  highly  of 
them  personally,  and  must  regret  to  see  them,  as  I  regret  it,  at  the 
losing  end  of  a  position  to  which  the  description  given  to  a  contest 
between  Romans  and  barbarians  so  aptly  applied,  i.  e.,  "  where  one 
side  strikes  and  the  other  stands  and  bleeds."  These  chemists, 
surely,  will  frame,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  McGuire  and  Doctor 
Thomas  who  was,  himself,  the  very  first  person  to  suggest  that 
chemical  tests  as  to  copper  be  made,  a  series  of  accurately  worded 
suggestions  for  chemical  tests,  the  results  of  which  must  satisfy, 
save  those  who  will  not  see,  all  who  desire  additional  tests,  if  there 
be  any  such. 

If,  however,  no  chemical  tests  of  copper  are  proposed  by  Mr. 
McGuire  and  Doctor  Thomas,  and  these  gentlemen  continue  a  Par 
thian  method  in  science,  where  one  shoots  off  statements  and  then 
flees  from  a  demonstration  of  facts,  then  these  gentlemen  must  be 
relegated  to  the  class  represented  by  the  worthy  old  lady  in  the 
story  who  said  she  had  what  was  a  great  deal  better  than  evidence, 
and  that  was  her  own  opinion. 


MOORE]  SHEET-COPPER   FROM   THE   MOUNDS  49 

GENERAL    DISCUSSION 

REMARKS  BY  F.   W.   PUTNAM   (PRESENTED  IN  HIS  ABSENCE  BY 
ROLAND  B.   DIXON). 

There  is  exhibited  in  the  Peabody  Museum  of  Harvard  University 
a  large  collection  of  objects  obtained  from  an  altar  in  the  great  mound  of 
the  Turner  group  in  Ohio.  This  mound  was  unquestionably  of  very  con 
siderable  antiquity  •  and  of  the  thousands  of  ornaments  found  on  the 
altar,  not  one  is  in  any  way  suggestive  of  contact  with  white  people.  In 
the  collection  there  are  several  natural  nuggets  of  native  copper,  others 
partly  flattened  by  hammering,  and  several  hammered  into  sheets  of  vary 
ing  thickness.  The  copper  ornaments  were  evidently  made  by  hammer 
ing  and  cutting  the  copper  into  the  desired  shapes.  This  lot  of  copper 
illustrates  the  method  of  working  the  native  copper  by  hammering.  The 
experiments  that  have  been  made  in  the  Museum  show  that  native  copper 
can  be  thus  hammered  with  stones.  Not  only  does  this  lot  of  specimens 
prove  the  hammering  of  native  copper,  but  with  these  copper  objects 
there  were  found  also  pieces  of  meteoric  iron,  native  silver,  and  a  few 
bits  of  native  gold  that  had  been  made  into  ornaments  by  first  ham 
mering  the  metals  into  thin  sheets.  One  large  piece  of  meteoric  iron  was 
evidently  in  its  natural  form,  and  another  small  piece  had  been  flattened 
by  hammering.  Experiments  have  proved  that  this  iron  can  be  ham 
mered  with  a  stone.  Celts  of  copper  and  of  meteoric  iron,  made  by  ham 
mering,  have  been  found  in  other  prehistoric  mounds  and  are  exhibited 
in  the  Museum.  The  question  of  making  ornaments  and  implements  of 
native  copper  by  hammering,  I  had  considered  as  settled  twenty  years 
ago,  at  the  time  my  observations  on  the  subject  were  first  published. 
Moreover,  Mr  Moore's  research  relating  to  the  analyses  of  various  copper 
objects  found  in  the  mounds  is  conclusive  as  to  the  origin  of  the  copper. 

REMARKS  BY  GEORGE  A.   DORSEY 

I  have    been  familiar   with    the    Hopewell   copper  for  many  years 
have  worked  over  it  a  great  deal,  have  done  something  myself  in  regard 
to  hammering   copper  with  primitive   tools.      While    still   a  student  at 
Cambridge   I   satisfied  myself   that   all   the    copper    from  the  Hopewell 
mounds  was  of  Indian  origin,  an  opinion  which  I  still  hold. 


AM.   ANTH.,  N.  S.,  5 — 4. 


ARE  THE   HOPEWELL  COPPER  OBJECTS  PREHIS 
TORIC? 

BY  WARREN  K.   MOOREHEAD 

At  the  Washington  meeting  of  the  American  Anthropological 
Association,  held  conjointly  with  that  of  Section  H  of  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  I  read  a  brief  paper  on 
the  Hopewell  copper  objects,  and  it  is  now  my  wish  to  present  a 
more  extended  communication  on  the  subject. 

Mr  Clarence  B.  Moore,  whose  valuable  work  in  southeastern 
United  States  is  so  favorably  known  to  all  who  are  interested  in 
American  archeology,  has  recently  called  my  attention  to  two  sen 
tences  in  my  review  of  Mr  Fowke's  Archceological  History  of  Ohio, 
published  in  the  American  Anthropologist  (volume  iv,  No.  3),  which 
might  be  regarded  by  some  as  evidence  that  European  objects  were 
found  in  the  Hopewell  mounds  of  Ohio.  If  any  one  so  construes 
these  sentences,  he  gives  to  them  an  interpretation  exactly  the  oppo 
site  of  that  which  I  wish  to  convey. 

When  the  land  on  which  the  Hopewell  group  of  mounds  is 
situated  was  cleared,  about  the  year  1800,  it  was  covered  with  a 
heavy  forest  growth  of  oak,  walnut,  etc.,  but  on  the  upper  one  of 
the  two  terraces  of  the  enclosure  the  growth  was  largely  of  oak. 
Evidence  based  on  the  age  of  timber  is  very  unsatisfactory,  and  one 
cannot  say  with  certainty  whether  the  largest  trees  growing  from 
the  mounds  were  two  hundred  or  four  hundred  years  of  age.  The 
fields  have  been  cultivated  for  many  years,  and  the  height  of  each 
tumulus  has  been  reduced  and  the  diameter  greatly  extended.  Our 
best  evidence  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the  mounds,  therefore,  is 
obtained  from  the  excavations.  These  evidences  are  : 

First.  Five  or  six  of  the  mounds  contain  peculiarly  shaped 
altars  of  burnt  clay.  These  are  confined  to  southern  Ohio  and  are 
not  mentioned  by  the  earliest  travelers  who  witnessed  the  southern 
Indians  building  mounds.  The  altars  here  referred  to  are  those  of 
the  type  described  by  Squier  and  Davis  and  in  my  own  writings, 

5° 


MOOREHEAD]  HOPE  WELL    COPPER    OBJECTS  51 

and  not  those  formed  of  blocks  of  wood,  squares  of  stone,  and  simi 
lar  structures. 

Second.  The  presence  of  chalcedony  from  Flint  Ridge.  So  far 
as  can  be  ascertained  the  Flint  Ridge  material  was  not  used  in  his 
toric  times. 

Tliird.  Substances  not  native  to  Ohio.  In  reviewing  Mr  Fowke's 
book  I  used  the  term  ''foreign"  in  allusion  to  objects  found  outside 
of  Ohio  ;  if  I  had  been  writing  on  the  United  States  in  general,  I 
should  not  have  employed  the  word,  for  in  matters  of  such  impor 
tance  as  the  antiquity  of  the  Hopewell  group,  one  cannot  be  too 
careful  in  the  use  of  explanatory  terms.  In  no  other  mounds  have 
so  many  different  substances  been  found.  Without  going  into  detail 
I  may  mention  as  having  been  unearthed  during  the  Hopewell  exca 
vations,  copper,  mica,  obsidian,  galena,  a  fossil,  sea-shells,  sharks' 
teeth,  and  Tennessee  flint.  Cannel  coal,  Flint  Ridge  material,  and 
graphite  slate  were  also  found,  but  these  cannot  be  considered  to 
have  come  from  a  distance  exceeding  eighty  or  a  hundred  miles. 
Excepting  the  copper,  these  materials  in  themselves,  whether 
obtained  by  barter  or  by  travel,  might  not  be  evidences  of  antiquity, 
but  the  copper  alone  is  sufficient  to  prove  the  pre-Columbian  origin 
of  the  Hopewell  group.  The  careful  analysis  made  by  Mr  Moore 
and  published  some  years  ago  in  his  "As  to  Copper  from  the 
Mounds  of  the  St.  Johns  River,  Florida,"  showed  that  copper  not 
only  from  other  mounds  but  that  from  the  Hopewell  group  con 
tained  a  higher  percentage  of  pure  copper  than  the  European  com 
mercial  copper  of  two  centuries  or  more  ago.  This  cannot  be  gain 
said.  The  presence  of  half-hammered  nuggets  in  the  Hopewell 
effigy  mound  was,  to  my  mind,  conclusive  evidence.  These  nuggets 
do  not  present  the  smooth  surface  of  copper  beaten  with  an  iron 
hammer,  nor  are  the  forms  regular.  They  have  undoubtedly  been 
rudely  shaped  with  stone  hammers,  showing  a  process  but  begun. 
In  June  last  I  visited  Wisconsin  and  was  astonished  at  the  amount 
of  drift-copper  occurring  on  the  suiface  between  Two  Rivers  and 
Princeton,  a  distance  of  about  one  hundred  miles.  I  obtained  a 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  pounds  of  specimens  of  varying  sizes,  some 
of  which  have  been  partly  worked  by  man.  The  hammered  pieces 
were  larger  than  those  found  in  the  Hopewell  group.  None  of 


52  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

them  was  cut  from  European  commercial  bars ;  all  are  from  the 
drift  or  were  mined  in  the  Superior- Michigan  region. 

Can  the  advocate  of  the  modern  origin  of  all  our  mound-groups, 
in  which  the  highest  culture  is  in  evidence,  claim  that  French, 
Spanish,  English,  Dutch,  or  American  traders  obtained  metal  carry 
ing  a  higher  percentage  of  copper  than  the  European  copper  of  the 
times  in  which  they  lived,  worked  some  of  it  into  such  strange  sym 
bols  as  the  swastika  and  many  cosmic  figures  and  combinations,  or 
into  thin  sheets  ;  made  immense  copper  axes  (one  of  which  weighed 
nearly  thirty-eight  pounds),  and  long  bar-shaped  objects  of  solid 
copper  weighing  from  ten  to  thirty  pounds,  such  as  has  been  found 
in  Wisconsin  ;  and  after  doing  this  skilful  work  have  hammered 
with  stones  some  ill-shaped  nuggets  and  traded  these  masses  of 
varying  forms,  representing  many  stages  of  workmanship,  to  the 
natives  to  be  placed  by  them  in  the  mounds  ?  Is  there  any  field 
evidence  of  such  a  contention  ?  Can  we  logically  conceive  of  an 
illiterate  trader  (for  not  one  in  a  dozen  of  the  early  traders  could 
either  read  or  write)  knowing  aught  concerning  the  swastika  or  the 
cosmic  symbols  ?  It  is  well  known  that  traders  did  carry  brass, 
beads,  kettles,  and  the  like  into  the  Indian  country  ;  but  imagine  a 
trader  visiting  the  Hopewell  group  with  sixty-eight  copper  axes  in 
his  possession,  ranging  from  four  ounces  to  thirty-eight  pounds  in 
weight !  And  there  is  no  European  or  American  axe  of  white 
man's  make  of  the  peculiar  form  of  the  Hopewell  specimens. 

The  designs  in  sheet-copper  are  so  intricate  that  up  to  the  pres 
ent  no  one  has  been  able  to  correctly  interpret  them.  Professor 
Putnam  and  Mr  Willoughby  have  published  a  paper  on  these 
strange  designs  which,  up  to  the  present  time,  is  the  only  attempt  at 
explanation  that  has  been  made.1  To  assert  that  any  of  the  objects 
found  during  the  Hopewell  explorations  are  of  European  origin,  or 
that  the  art  products  of  these  mounds  were  inspired  by  a  knowledge 
of  the  white  man's  methods,  is  to  assume  a  position,  it  appears  to 
me,  directly  contrary  to  that  which  the  facts  warrant. 

There  is  another  strong  argument  in  favor  of  the  pre-Columbian 
origin  of  the  copper  objects  from  the  Ohio  mounds.  La  Salle's 
chroniclers  are  silent  in  regard  to  the  Lower  Scioto  region,  and  it  is 

1  "Symbolism  in  Ancient  American  Art,"   Proceedings  of  the  A.  A.  A.  S.,  1896. 


MOOREHEAD]  HOPE  WELL    COPPER    OBJECTS  53 

not  probable  that  any  explorer  or  trader  visited  the  Ohio  valley  prior 
to  LaSalle's  time.  If  the  villages  of  this  section  had  been  occupied 
by  the  Indians  in  1669,  when  La  Salle  conversed  with  the  Shawnee 
prisoner,  he  surely  would  have  mentioned  them. 

Let  us  consider  the  field  evidence  again.  An  inspection  of  the 
village  sites  on  the  Scioto  and  its  tributaries,  where  the  Shawnees 
lived  for  so  long,  reveals  very  little  village  refuse.  Save  at  Frank 
fort  (in  Ross  county,  six  miles  from  Hopewell),  there  are  no 
mounds  or  other  works  near  the  village  sites.  Now,  curiously 
enough,  the  Frankfort  site  (Chillicothe-on-Paint l)  was  to  the  east, 
and  extended  over  the  edge  of  a  fortification  of  pre-Columbian  char 
acter.  There  were  four  mounds  in  or  near  the  enclosure,  and  it  is 
well  known  that  the  Shawnees  did  not  use  them,  and  in  these 
mounds  we  found  the  usual  Lower  Scioto  copper  objects,  etc., 
when  we  opened  them  in  1888  and  1889. 

The  Shawnees  buried  their  dead  in  trenches  and  graves  in  the 
eastern  part  of  the  town,  and  as  these  graves  have  frequently  been 
opened,  an  excellent  opportunity  has  been  afforded  of  contrasting 
the  modern  with  the  pre-Columbian  mortuary  accompaniments.  In 
these  trenches  and  graves  glass  beads,  brass  kettles,  and  iron  knives 
have  been  found  with  the  human  remains  ;  in  the  mounds  there 
were  two  small  altars,  pyrula  shells,  pipes,  etc.;  but  in  the  graves 
no  pyrula  shells,  no  monitor  pipes,  no  copper,  no  slate  ornaments 
were  found. 

On  the  known  historic  sites  in  southern  Ohio  so  little  is  found 
that,  were  it  not  for  our  records  of  Logan,  or  Tecumseh,  or  Corn 
stalk,  we  would  be  inclined  to  conclude  that  roving  hunters  incapa 
ble  of  producing  men  of  ability  lived  there.  The  great  Illinois 
sites  mentioned  by  La  Salle  are  covered  with  the  usual  village 
debris  of  bone,  shell,  stone,  and  clay,  but  not  in  such  quantity  as  at 
Madisonville,  at  Two  Rivers  (Wisconsin),  or  at  Highbys  and  other 
points  on  the  Scioto.  These  Scioto  sites  not  only  display  evidence 
of  long  occupancy  by  a  few  people  or  of  a  large  population  for  a 
limited  period,  but  they  are  surrounded  by  or  are  in  combination 
with  great  enclosures  or  mound-groups.  In  them  the  art  is  not 

iQiillicothe  means  "Place  of  residence."  There  were  several  towns  bearing  the 
name  —  Old,  Upper,  Lower,  etc. 


54  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

confined  to  the  scanty  scrapers,  rude  hammers,  and  knives  or  axes 
of  the  Shawnee  and  Illinois  sites.  On  the  contrary,  the  art  is  the 
best  found  east  of  the  Pueblo  country.  If  these  tribes  were  living 
when  Sir  John  Hawkins'  men  passed  through  the  middle  of  the 
continent,  about  the  year  1570,  on  their  way  from  Nicaragua  to 
Cape  Breton,  supposing  that  the  sailors  traversed  the  Ohio  valley, 
they  would  have  left  us  a  glimpse  of  these  Scioto  sites.  But  the 
book  on  their  wanderings  is,  of  course,  silent  on  the  subject.  It 
mentions  the  Iroquois,  but  that  is  about  the  only  tribe  we  can  rec 
ognize  with  certainty 

Dr  Cyrus  Thomas  has  said  that  the  Shawnees  came  to  Ohio  in 
times  of  antiquity.  I  do  not  believe  he  has  determined  the  date  of 
this  move  —  if  he  has,  I  court  correction.  That  their  village  was 
alongside  one  of  the  earth  enclosures,  yet  totally  distinct  from  it ; 
that  the  art  products  of  the  two  are  quite  dissimilar  —  one  being 
crude,  the  other  more  advanced, — are  further  evidences,  to  my 
mind,  of  the  pre-Columbian  origin  of  the  mound-groups  and  their 
contents  in  Ohio,  Kentucky,  and  Indiana. 


AMERICAN    ANTHROPOLOGIST 


5.,   VOL.   5,    PL.   XI 


PRIMITIVE    COPPER    WORKING 

a,  Part  of  a  copper  ear-ornament  from  a  mound  of  the  Hopevvell  group, 
Ohio,     b,  Modern  copy  of  the  above  made  by  primitive  processes. 


PRIMITIVE    METAL   WORKING 
BY  CHARLES  C.   WILLOUGHBY 

Apropos  of  the  discussion  at  the  recent  meeting  of  the  Amer 
ican  Association  at  Washington  of  the  sheet-copper  objects  from  the 
mounds,  a  brief  account  of  an  experiment  in  native  copper  working 
with  primitive  tools,  made  by  the  writer  in  1894,  may  not  be  with 
out  interest.  Only  two  trials  were  made  to  form  sheets  from  native 
copper,  both  of  which  were  successful.  The  first  sheet  produced 
was  from  a  nugget  from  an  altar  of  an  Ohio  mound,  the  second 
was  from  native  copper  from  the  Lake  Superior  region.  But  one 
attempt  was  made  to  form  an  ornament  from  a  sheet  of  copper  thus 
produced,  the  result  of  which  is  shown  in  b  of  the  accompanying 
plate  xi.  The  upper  figure  (a)  of  the  same  plate  represents  half 
of  an  ear-ornament  from  an  extensive  deposit  of  copper  objects  in  a 
mound  of  the  Hopewell  group,  Ohio.  Although  larger  and  more 
elaborate  ornaments  were  found,  this  object  was  chosen  for  repro 
duction  because  its  construction  from  a  nugget  of  native  copper  in 
volved  all  the  various  processes  necessary  for  making  any  object 
of  metal  from  these  mounds  —  hammering,  annealing,  grinding, 
cutting,  embossing,  perforating,  and  polishing. 

The  experiment  was  carried  out  upon  a  sea-beach  strewn  with 
water-worn  stones  of  all  sizes.  Placing  upon  a  smooth  stone  a 
piece  of  native  copper  from  the  Lake  Superior  region,  and  using 
an  oval  water-worn  stone  as  a  hammer,  the  copper  was  carefully 
beaten.  A  few  blows  sufficed  to  show  the  tendency  of  the  copper  to 
crack  along  the  edges  as  it  expanded.  This  tendency  was  over 
come  by  annealing.  It  was  only  by  careful  hammering  and  repeated 
annealing  that  the  mass  was  formed  into  a  thin  sheet.  When  the 
sheet  had  attained  the  required  size  it  was  ground  to  a  uniform  thick 
ness  between  two  flat  stones,  the  work  being  hastened  by  the  addi 
tion  of  fine  sand. 

The  sheet  was  cut  into  circular  form  by  incising  partly  through 
the  copper  with  sharp  flints  and  breaking  off  the  superfluous  metal. 

55 


56  AMERICAN  ANTHROPOLOGIST  [N.  s.,  5,  1903 

The  rough  edges  were  then  ground  smooth  on  stones.  As  the  four 
disks  forming  the  pair  of  ornaments  which  served  as  a  pattern  were 
remarkably  alike  in  size  and  contour,  and  appeared  to  have  been 
made  over  the  same  mold,  a  modern  form  of  the  required  shape 
was  constructed  from  a  piece  of  driftwood  by  charring  and  scraping 
and  cutting  with  sharp  flints.  Over  this  form  the  copper  disk  was 
molded  by  light  hammering  and  by  pressure,  the  burnishing  and 
pressing  tool  being  made  from  a  splinter  broken  from  a  beef-bone 
found  on  the  beach.  During  the  pressing  and  embossing  process  it 
was  necessaiy  to  anneal  the  copper  several  times  in  a  small  fire 
kindled  upon  the  sand.  The  perforations  were  made  by  using  a 
rudely  chipped  flint  as  a  drill  and  reamer.  The  ornament  was  pol 
ished  with  fine  sand,  and  afterward  with  wood  ashes. 

The  remarkable  objects  wrought  from  copper,  silver,  and  mete 
oric  iron  from  the  Turner  and  Liberty  groups,  Ohio,  on  exhibition 
in  the  Peabody  Museum  at  Cambridge,  and  those  from  the  Hope- 
well  group  in  the  Field  Columbian  Museum  at  Chicago,  should  be 
carefully  studied  by  all  students  interested  in  primitive  metal  work 
ing.  These  collections  include  nuggets  of  meteoric  iron,1  copper, 
and  silver,  most  of  them  hammered  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree. 
Among  the  finished  implements  and  ornaments  are  celts  and  small 
cutting  tools  of  copper  and  meteoric  iron  ;  head,  breast,  and  other 
personal  ornaments  of  copper,  meteoric  iron,  and  silver,  and  spool- 
shaped  ear-ornaments  of  copper,  some  of  which  are  overlaid  with 
thin  sheets  of  meteoric  iron  or  silver.  Symmetrical  hemispheres  ol 
clay  from  half  an  inch  to  two  inches  in  diameter  were  very  neatly 
covered  with  thin  sheets  of  meteoric  iron,  copper,  or  silver,  the  plate 
of  metal  on  the  flat  side  of  the  ornament  having  two  perforations 
for  attachment.  Many  symbolic  designs  cut  from  thin  copper  are 
also  in  the  collections,2  and  to  a  student  of  the  higher  symbolism  of 
the  American  Indian  these  designs  are  of  themselves  sufficient  proof 
of  the  native  origin  of  the  objects. 

A  dozen  or  more  small  sheets  of  gold  hammered  from  small 


1  For  notices  of  meteoric  iron  from  the  Ohio  mounds,  with  drawings  and  analyses, 
also  for  a  brief  account  of  the  objects  from  the  Turner  group,  see  Professor  Putnam's 
notes  in  Peabody  Museum  Reports,  vol.  in. 

2  See  Proceedings  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  for 
P.  302. 


WILLOUGHBY]  PRIMITIVE   METAL    IVOR  KING  57 

nuggets,  but  otherwise  unworked,  were  taken  from  one  of  the  altars 
of  the  Turner  group  and  may  be  seen  at  the  Peabody  Museum. 
With  this  fact  in  mind,  one  should  not  too  hastily  question  the  state 
ments  of  early  writers  that  gold  objects  have  been  taken  from  the 
Ohio  mounds.  The  more  important  evidences  tending  to  show  that 
the  sheet-metal  objects  noted  above  are  of  prehistoric  origin,  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows  : 

1.  The  extensive  prehistoric  mines  where  native  copper  and  sil 
ver  were  obtained. 

2.  The  occurrences  in  the  mounds  of  native  copper  and  silver  in 
nuggets,  both  worked  and  in  their  natural  state,  in  company  with 
ornaments  from  thin  sheets  of  the  same  metals. 

3.  The   ornaments   from   the   Turner,    Hopewell,   and   Liberty 
groups  are  strictly  of  native  design. 

4.  The  motifs  of  the  symbolic  forms  expressed  in  the  designs  of 
many  of  the  objects  are  the  same  as  those  occurring  in  objects  of 
bone,  shell,  and  stone  throughout  a  large  portion  of  America. 

5.  The  simple  art  of  forming  sheets  of  copper,  silver,  and  gold 
(as  well  as  the  more  advanced  arts  of  metallurgy)  was  known  and 
practised  by  the  cultured  tribes  of  the  Peruvian  region  in  prehistoric 
times.      It  is  not  probable  that  any  archeologist  will  claim  that  the 
thin  sheets  from  which  many  of  the  prehistoric  Peruvian  ornaments 
were  cut,  large  though  some  of  them  were,  were  rolled  by  machi 
nery,  or  that  any  processes  other  than  those  of  hammering,  anneal 
ing,  grinding,   embossing,    and  perforating   were  followed    in   their 
construction. 

6.  Practical  demonstrations  have  shown  that  any  of  the  metal 
objects  from  the  above  mounds  could  have  been  made  by  processes 
known  to  the  Indians  at  the  time  of  their  first  contact  with  whites.1 

7.  There  is  no  evidence  whatever  of  the  European  origin  of  the 
sheet-copper  from  the  Turner,  Liberty,  or  Hopewell  groups,  or  that 
the  mounds  themselves  are  of  post-Columbian  date. 


1  That  the  Indians  of  the  low  grade  of  culture  of  the  northern  Athapascans  under 
stood  the  art  of  annealing  is  shown  by  a  passage  in  Hearne's  narrative  of  his  journey  to 
Coppermine  river  in  1771.  Writing  of  the  native  copper  of  that  region,  he  says  :  "  By 
the  help  of  fire,  and  two  stones,  they  can  beat  it  out  to  any  shape  they  wish." — Samuel 
Hearne,  A  Journey  to  the  Northern  Ocean,  p.  175. 


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